Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Dr Jekyll

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Mr Hyde

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BY

E. L. STEVENSON

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^

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LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1885

Price One Shilling

^oxxQxnaxx's ^^Tagastnc.

In the January Number a Novel will be
commenced by

MR. WALTER BESANT,

ENTITLED

"CHILDREN OF CIBEON.'

It will deal with Modem Society among
the Rich and the Poor.

London : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

i

DR JEKYLL and MR HYDE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

AN INLAND VOYAGE.

EDINBURGH: Picturesque Notes.

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY.

VIRGINIBI3S PUERISQUE.

FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS.

NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.

TREASURE ISLAND.

THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS.

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES.

PRINCE OTTO.

{WITH MRS. STEVENSON.)

MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS : the Dynamiter.

STEANGE CASE

OF

m JEKYLL AND MR HYDE

BY

EGBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1886

All rights i-eserved

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

LONDON

TO

KATHARINE DE MATTOS.

It's ill to loose the bands that God decreed to bind ;
Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind.
Far away from home, 0 it's still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

CONTENTS.

PAGK

STORY OF THE DOOR 1

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE ....

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE

THE CAREW MURDER CASE ....

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LAN YON

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW

THE LAST NIGHT

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE ....

HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT OF THE
CASE

14
30
35
44
54
62
66
91

106

STEANGE CASE

OP

DE. JEKYLL AND ME. HYDE.

STORY OF THE BOOB.

Mr. Utterson the lawyer Avas a man of a rugged
countenance, that was never lighted by a smile ;
cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse ; back-
ward in! sentiment ; lean, long, dusty, dreary
and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings,
and when the wine was to his taste, something
eminently human beaconed from his eye ; some-
thing indeed w^hicli never found its way into his
talk, but which spoke not only in these silent
symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often
and loudly in the acts of his life. He was
austere with himself; drank gin when he was
alone, to mortify a taste for vintages ; and though

0^

2 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

lie enjoyed tlie theatre, had not crossed the doors
of one for twenty years. But he had an approved
tolerance for others ; sometimes wondering, almost
with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved
in their misdeeds ; and in any extremity inclined
to help rather than to reprove. ^I incline to
Cain's heresy,' he used to say quaintly : ' I let
my brother go to the devil in his o^vn way.' In
this character, it was frequently his fortune to be
the last reputable acquaintance and the last good
influence in the lives of dow^n-going men. And to
such as these, so long as they came about his
chambers, he never marked a shade of change in
his demeanour.

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson ;
for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even
his friendships seemed to be founded in a similar
catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a
modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-
made from the hands of opportunity; and that
was the lawyer's w^ay. His friends were those
of his own blood or those whom he had known the
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the grow^th

STORY OF THE DOOR 3

of time, they implied no aptness in the object.
Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr.
Richard Enfieki, his distant kinsman, the well-
known man about town. It was a nut to crack
for many, what these two could see in each
other or what subject they could find in common.
It was reported by those who encountered them
in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing,
looked singularly dull, and would hail with
obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For
all that, the two men put the greatest store by
these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of
each week, and not only set aside occasions of
pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

It chanced on one of these rambles that
their way led them down a by- street in a busy
quarter of London. The street was small and
what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving
trade on the week-days. The inhabitants were
all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously
hoping to do better still, and laying out the
surplus of their gains in coquetry j so that the

h 2

4 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an
air of invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen.
Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid
charms and lay comparatively empty of passage,
the street shone out in contrast to its dingy
neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest ; and with
its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses,
and general cleanliness and gaiety of note,
instantly caught and pleased the eye of the
passenger.

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand
going east, the line was broken by the entry of a
court ; and just at that point, a certain sinister
block of building thrust forward its gable on the
street. It was two storeys high; showed no
window, nothing but a door on the lower storey
and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the
upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of
prolonged and sordid negligence. The door,
which was equipped with neither bell nor
knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps
slouched into the recess and struck matches on
the panels ; children kept shop upon the steps ;

STORY OF THE DOOR 5

the sclioolboy had tried his knife on the mould-
ings ; and for close on a generation, no one had
appeared to drive away these random visitors or
to repair their ravages.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the
other side of the by-street ; but when they came
abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his
cane and pointed.

' Did you ever remark that door ? ' he asked ;
and when his companion had replied in the
affirmative, ' It is connected in my mind,' added
he, ^ with a very odd story.'

' Indeed ? ' said Mr. Utterson, with a slight
change of voice, ^ and what was that ? '

' Well, it was this way,' returned Mr. Enfield :
' I was coming home from some place at the end
of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter
morning, and my way lay through a part of town
where there was literally nothing to be seen but
lamps. Street after street, and all the folks
asleep — street after street, all lighted up as if for
a procession and all as empty as a church — till at
last I got into that state of mind when a man

6 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

listens and listens and begins to long for tlie
sight of a policeman. All at once, I saw two
figures : one a little man wlio was stumping along
eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of
maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as
she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the
two ran into one another naturally enough at the
corner; and then came the horrible part of the
thing; for the man trampled calmly over the
child's body and left her screaming on the ground.
It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to
see. It wasn't like a man ; it was like some
damned Juggernaut. I gave a view halloa, took
to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought
him back to where there was already quite a
group about the screaming child. He was per-
fectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me
one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on
me like running. The people who had turned
out were the girl's own family ; and pretty soon ,
the doctor, for whom she had 1)oon sent, put in
his appearance. Well, tlio cliild was not mucli
the worse, more friglitened, according to the

STORY OF THE DOOR 7

Sawbones; and there yon miglit have supposed
would be an end to it. But there was one curious
circumstance. I bad taken a loathing to my gen-
tleman at first sight. So had the child's family,
which was only natural. But the doctor's case
w^as what struck me. He was the usual cut and
dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour,
with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as
emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like
the rest of us ; every time he looked at my
prisoner, I saw that Sav,^bones turn sick and
white with the desire to kill him. I knew what
was in his mind, just as he knew what was in
mine ; and killing being out of the question, we
did the next best. We told the man we could
and would make such a scandal out of this, as
should make his name stink from one end of
London to the other. If he had any friends or
any credit, we undertook that he should lose them.
And all the time, as we were pitching it in red
hot, we were keeping the women off him as best
we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I
never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and

8 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

there was the man in the middle, with a kind of
black, sneering coolness — frightened too, I conld
see that — but carrying it off, sir, really like
Satan. '^ If you choose to make capital out of
this accident,*' said he, "I am naturally helpless.
No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene," says
he. '^ Name your figure." Well, we screwed him
up to a hundred pounds for the child's family ; he
would have clearly liked to stick out ; but there was
something about the lot of us that meant mischief,
and at last he struck. The next thing was to
get the money ; and where do you think he carried
us but to that place with the door ? — whipped
out a ke}^, went in, and presently came back with
the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque
for the balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer
and signed with a name that I can't mention,
though it's one of the points of my story, but it
Avas a name at least very well known and often
printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature
was good for more than that, if it was only genuine.
I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentle-
num that the whole business looked apocryphal,

STORY OF THE DOOR 9

and tJiat a man does not, in real life, walk into a
cellar door at four in tlie morning and come out
of it with another man's cheque for close upon a
hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and
sneering. ^' Set your mind at rest," says he, '^ I
will stay with you till the banks open and cash
the cheque myself." So we all set off, the doctor,
and the child's father, and our friend and myself,
and passed the rest of the night in my chambers ;
and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in
a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself,
and said I had every reason to believe it Avas
a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was
genuine.'

^ Tut-tut,' said Mr. Utterson.

^ I see you feel as I do,' said Mr. Enfield.
^ Yes, it's a bad story. For my man was a fellow
that nobody could have to do with, a really
damnable man ; and the person that drew the
cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, cele-
brated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your
fellows who do what they call good. Black mail,
I suppose; an honest man paying through the

10 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black
Mail House is what I call that place with the
door, in consequence. Though even that, you
know, is far from explaining all,' he added, and
with the words fell into a vein of musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson
asking rather suddenly : ^ And you don't know if
the drawer of the cheque lives there ? '

' A likely place isn't it ? ' returned Mr. Enfield.
^ But I happen to have noticed his address ; he
lives in some square or other.'

' And you never asked about — the place with
the door ? ' said Mr. Utterson.

' No, sir : I had a delicacy,' was the reply.
' I feel very strongly about putting questions ; it
partakes too much of the style of the day of judg-
ment. You start a question, and it's like starting a
stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill ; and
away the stone goes, starting others ; and presently
some bland old bird (the last you would have
thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back
garden and the family have to change their name.

STORY OF THE DOOR 11

No, sir, I make it a rule of mine : tlie more it
looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.'

^ A very good rule, too,' said the law^^er.
^ But I have studied the place for myself,'
continued Mr. Enfield. '' It seems scarcely a
house. There is no other door, and nobody goes
in or out of that one but, once in a great while,
the gentleman of my adventure. There are three
windows looking on the court on the first floor ;
none below ; the windows are always shut but
they're clean. And then there is a chimney which
is generally smoking ; so somebody must live there.
And yet it's not so sure ; for the buildings are so
packed together about that court, that it's hard
to say where one ends and another begins.'

The -pair walked on again for a while in
silence ; and then ' Enfield,' said Mr. Utterson,
' that's a good rule of yours.'

' Yes, I think it is,' returned Enfield.

^ But for all that,' continued the lawyer,

'■ there's one point I want to ask : I want to ask

the name of that man who walked over the child.'

'Well,' said Mr. Enfield, 'I can't see what

12 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

liann it would do. It was a man of the name of
Hyde.'

' Hm,' said Mr. Utterson. ' What sort of a
man is he to see ? '

^ He is not easy to describe. There is some-
thing wrong with his appearance ; something
displeasing, something downright detestable. I
never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce
know why. He must be deformed somewhere ;
he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I
couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary
looking man, and yet I really can name nothing
out of tlie way. No, sir ; 1 can make no hand of
it ; I can't describe him. And it's not want of
memory ; for I declare I can see liini this
moment.'

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in
silence and obviously under a Aveight of considera-
tion. ' You are sure he used a key ? ' he inquired
at last.

' My dear sir . . .' began Enfield, surprised
out of himself.

' Yes, I know,' said Utterson ; ' I know it

STORY OF THE DOOR 13

must seem strange. The fact is, if I do not ask
you the name of the other party, it is because I
know it ah-eady. You see, Eichard, your tale has
gone home. Tf you have been inexact in any
point, you had better correct it.'

' I think you might have warned me,' returned
the other with a touch of sullenness. ^ But I have
been pedantically exact, as you call it. The fellow
had a key ; and what's more, he has it still. I saw
him use it, not a week ago.'

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a
word; and the young man presently resumed.
' Here is another lesson to say nothing,' said he.
' I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make
a bargain never to refer to this again.'

' With all my heart,' said the lawyer. ' I
shake hands on that, Kichard.'

14 DR. JEICYLL AND MR. HYDE

SEARCH FOB MB. HYDE.

That evening, Mr. Utterson came home to Ins
bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat clown to
dinner without relish. It was his custom of a
Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by
the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his
reading desk, until the clock of the neighbouring
church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would
go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night,
how^ever, as soon as the cloth was taken away, he
took up a candle and went into his business room.
There he opened his safe, took from the most
private part of it a document endorsed on the
envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will, and sat dow^n with
a clouded brow to study its contents. The will
was holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took
charge of it now that it was made, had refused to
lend the least assistance in the making of it;
it j)rovided not only that, in case of the decease

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 15

of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.,

&c., all his possessions were to pass into the hands
of his ' friend and benefactor Edward Hyde/ but
that in case of Dr. Jekyll's ^disappearance or
unexplained absence for any period exceeding
three calendar months/ the said Edward Hyde
should step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes
without further delay and free from any burthen
or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor's household.
This document had long been the lawyer's eyesore.
It offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the
sane and customary sides of life, to whom the fanci-
ful was the immodest. And hitherto it was his
io'iiorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indig-
nation ; now, by a sudden turn, it was his know-
ledge. It was already bad enough when the name
was but a name of which he could learn no more.
It was worse when it began to be clothed upon
with detestable attributes ; and out of the shift-
ing, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled
his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite pre-
sentment of a fiend.

16 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. IIYDE

^ I thought it was madness,' he said, as h^e
replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, ^ and
now I begin to fear it is disgrace.'

With that he blew out his candle, put on a
great coat and set forth in the direction of Caven-
dish Square, that citadel of medicine, where his
friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and
received his crowding patients. ' If anyone knows,
it will be Lanyon,' he had thought.

The solemn butler knew^ and welcomed him ;
he was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered
direct from the door to the dining-room where
Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine. This was a
hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with
a shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous
and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson,
he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him
with both hands. The geniality, as was the way
of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye ;
but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two
were old friends, old mates both at school and
college, both thorough respecters of themselves
and of each other, and, what does not always

SEARCH FOR .MR. HYDE 17

follow, men wlio tliorouglily enjoyed each other's
company.

After a little rambling talk, tlie lawyer led up
to the subject which so disagreeably preoccupied
his mind.

' I suppose, Lanyon,' said he, ^ you and I must
be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has ? '

' I wish the friends were younger,' chuckled
Dr. Lanyon. ^ But I suppose we are. And what
of that ? I see little of him now.'

^ Indeed ? ' said Utterson. ' I thought you
had a bond of common interest.'

^ We had,' was the reply. ' But it is more
than ten yeai^s since Henry Jekyll became too
fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong
in mind ; and though of course I continue to take
an interest in him for old sake's sake as they say,
I see and I have seen devilish little of the man.
Such unscientific balderdash,' added the doctor,
flushing suddenly purple, ^ would have estranged
Damon and Pythias.'

This little spirt of temper was somewhat of a
relief to Mr. Utterson. ' They have only differed

c

18 DR. JEKYLL .AND MK. HYDE

on some point of science,' lie thought ; and being a
man of no scientific passions (except in the matter
of conveyancing) he even added : ^ It is nothing-
worse than that ! ' He gave his friend a few
seconds to recover his composure, and then ap-
proaclied the question he had come to put. ^ Did
you ever come across a protege of his — one Hyde ? '
he asked.

^ Hyde ? ' repeated Lanyon. ' No. Never
heard of him. Since my time/

That was the amount of information that the
lawyer carried back with him to the great, dark
bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the small
hours of the morning began to grow large. It
was a night of little ease to his toiling mind,
toiling in mere darkness and besieged by ques-
tions.

Six o'clock struck on the bells of tlio cliurch
that was so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's
dwelling, and still he was digging at the problem.
Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual
side" alone ; but now his imagination also was
engaged or rather enslaved ; and as he lay anc|

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 19

tossed ill the gross darkness of the night and
the curtained room, Mr. Enfiekl's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures.
He would be aware of the great field of lamps of
a nocturnal city ; then of the figure of a man
walking swiftly ; then of a child running from the
doctor's ; and then these met, and that human
Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on
regardless of her screams. Or else he would see
a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then
the door of that room would be opened, the
curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper re-
called, and lo ! there would stand by his side a
figure to whom power was given, and even at that
dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The
figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer all
night ; and if at any time he dozed over, it was
but to see it glide more stealthily through sleeping
houses, or move the more swiftly and still the
more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider
labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street •
corner crush a child and leave her screaming.

c 2

20 Dli. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

And still the figure had no face by which he
might know it ; even in his dreams, it had no
face, or one that baffled him and melted before his
eyes ; and thus it was that there sprang up and
grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly
strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold
the features of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could
but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery
would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away,
as was the habit of mysterious things when well
examined. He might see a reason for his friend's
strange preference or bondage (call it which you
please) and even for the startling clauses of the
will. And at least it would be a face worth
seeing : the face of a man who was without boAvels
of mercy : a face which had but to show itself to
raise up, in the mind of the unimpressionable
Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began
to haunt the door in the bystreet of shops. In
the morning before office hours, at noon when
business was plenty and time scarce, at night
under the face of the fogged city moon, by all

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 21

lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse,
the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.

' If he be Mr. Hyde/ he had thought, ' I
shall be Mr. Seek.'

And at last his patience was rewarded. It was
a fine dry night ; frost in the air ; the streets as
clean as a ballroom floor ; the lamps, unshaken by
any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and
shadow. By ten o'clock, when the shops were
closed, the bystreet was very solitary and, in spite
of the low growl of London from all round, very
silent. Small sounds carried far ; domestic sounds
out of the houses were clearly audible on either
side of the roadway ; and the rumour of the
approach of any passenger preceded him by a
long time. Mr. Utterson had been some minutes
at his post, when he was aware of an odd, light
footstep drawing near. In the course of his
nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to
the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a
single person, while he is still a great way off,
suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum
and clatter of the city. Yet his attention had

22 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. Hi'DE

never before been so sbarply and decisively
arrested ; and it was with a strong, superstitious
prevision of success that he withdrew into the
entry of the court.

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out
suddenly louder as they turned the end of the
street. The lawyer, looking forth from the entry,
could soon see what manner of man he had
to deal with. He was small and very plainly
dressed, and the look of him, even at that distance,
went somehow strongly against the watcher's
inclination. But he made straight for the door,
crossing the roadway to save tune ; and as he came,
he drew a key from his pocket like one approach-
ing home.

Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him
on the shoulder as he passed. ' Mr. Hyde, I
think?'

Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake
of the breath. But his fear was only momentary ;
and though he did not look the lawyer in the
face, he answered coolly enough : ^ That is my
name. AVhat do vou want ? '

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 23

' I see you are going in/ returned the
lawyer. ^ I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's — Mr.
U tterson of Gaunt Street — you must liave heard
my name ; and meeting you so conveniently, I
thought you might admit me.'

^ You will not find Dr. Jekyll ; he is from
home/ replied Mr. Hyde, blowing in the key.
And then suddenjy, but still without looking up,
' How did you know me ? ' he asked.

' On your side,' said Mr. Utterson, ^ will you
do me a favour ? '

' With pleasure,' replied the other. ' What
shall it be ? '

' W ill you let me see your face ? ' asked the
lawyer.

Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as
if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about
with an air of defiance ; and the pair stared at
each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds.
' Now I shall know you again,' said Mr. Utterson.
' It may be useful.'

^ Yes,' returned Mr. Hyde, ^ it is as well we
have met ; and a p'ojpos^ you should have my

2i DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

address.' And lie gave a number of a street
in Soho.

'Good God!' tliouglit Mr. Utterson, 'can lie
too liave been thinking of the will ? ' But he
kept his feelings to himself and only grunted in
acknowledgement of the address.

' And now/ said the other, ' how did you
know me ? '

' By description,' was the reply.

' Whose description ? '

' We have common friends/ said Mr. Utterson.

' Common friends ? ' echoed Mr. Hyde, a
little hoarsely. ' Who are they ? '

' Jekyll, for instance,' said the lawyer.

' He never told you,' cried Mr. Hyde, with a
flush of anger. ' I did not think you would have
lied.'

' Come,' said Mr. Utterson, ' that is not fitting
language.'

The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh ;
and the next moment, with extraordinary quick-
ness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared
into the house.

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 25

Tlie lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had
left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he
began slowly to mount the street, pausing every
step or two and putting his hand to his brow like
a man in mental perplexity. The problem he
was thus debating as he walked, was one of a
class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale
and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity
without any nameable malformation, he had a
displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the
lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of
timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky,
whispering and somewhat broken voice ; all these
were points against him, but not all of these
together could explain the hitherto unknown
disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr.
Utterson regarded him. ' There must be some-
thing else,' said the perplexed gentleman. ' There
is something more, if I could find a name for it.
God bless me, the man seems hardly human !
Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it
be the old story of Dr. Fell ? or is it the mere
radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires

26 DPv. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

tlirouglij and transfigures, its clay continent ?
The last, I think ; for 0 my poor old Harry
Jekyl], if ever 1 read Satan's signature upon a
face, it is on that of your new friend/

Kound the corner from the bystreet, there
was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now
for the most part decayed from their high estate
and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and
conditions of men : map-engravers, architects,
shady lawyers and the agents of obscure enter-
prises. One house, however, second from the
corner, was still occupied entire ; and at the door
of this, which wore a great air of wealth and
comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness
except for the fan-light, Mr. Utterson stojiped
and knocked. A well-dressed, elderly servant
opened the door.

' Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole ? ' asked the
lawyer.

' I will see, Mr. Utterson,' said Poole, admit-
ting the visitor, as he spoke, into a large, low-
roofed, comfortable hall, paved with flags, warmed
(after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 27

open firGj and furnished with costly cabinets of
oak. ^ Will you wait here by the fire, sir ? or
shall I give you a light in the dining-room ? '

' Here, thank you,' said the lawyer, and he
drew near and leaned on the tall fender. This
hall, in which he was now left alone, was a pet
fancy of his friend the doctor's ; and Utterson
himself was wont to speak of it as the pleasantest
room in London. But to-night there was a
shudder in his blood ; the face of Hyde sat heavy
on his memory ; he felt (what was rare with him)
a nausea and distaste of life ; and in the gloom of
his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in the
flickering of the firelight on the polished cabinets
and the uneasy starting of the shadow on the
roof. He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole
presently returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll
was gone out.

' I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting
room door, Poole,' he said. ' Is that right, when
Dr. Jekyll is from home ? '

' Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir/ replied the
servant. ' Mr. Hvde has a kev.'

28 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

' Your master seems to repose a great deal of
trust in that young man, Poole/ resumed tlie
other musingly.

' Yes, sir, he do indeed/ said Poole. ' We
have all orders to obey him.'

' I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde ? ' asked
Utter son.

' 0, dear no, sir. He never dines here,'
replied the butler. ' Indeed we see very little of
him on this side of the house ; he mostly comes
and goes by the laboratory.'

' Well, good night, Poole.'

' Good night, Mr. Utter son.'

And the lawyer set out homeward with a very
heavy heart. ^Poor Harry Jekyll,' he thought,
^ my mind misgives me he is in deep waters !
He was wild when he was young ; a long while
ago to be sure ; but in the law of God, there is no
statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that ; the
ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed
disgrace : punishment coming, pede claudo, years
after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned
the fault.' And the lawyer, scared by the thought,

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 29

brooded awliile on Lis own past, groping in all the
corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-
the-Box of an old iniqnity should leap to light
there. His past was fairly blameless ; few men could
read the rolls of their life with less apprehension ;
yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill
things he had done, and raised up again into a
sober and fearful gratitude by the many that he had
come so near to doing, yet avoided. And then by a
return on his former subject, he conceived a spark
of hope. ' This Master Hyde, if he were studied,'
thought -he, ^ must have secrets of his own : black
secrets, by the look of him ; secrets compared to
which poor JekylFs worst would be like sunshine.
Things cannot continue as they are. It turns me
cold to think of this creature stealing like a thief
to Harry's bedside ; poor Harry, what a wakening !
And the danger of it ; for if this Hyde suspects
the existence of the will, he may grow impatient to
inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulder to the
wheel — if Jekyll will but let me,' he added, ' if
Jekyll will only let me.' For once more he saw
before his mind's eye, as clear as a transparency,
the strange clauses of the will.

30 DR. JEKYLL AND MK. HYDE

DE. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE.

A FORTNIGHT latePj by excellent good fortune, tlie
doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners to some
five or six old cronies, all intelligent, reputable
men and all judges of good wine; and Mr.
XJtterson so contrived that he remained behind
after the others had departed. This was- no new-
arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many
scores of times. Where Utterson w^as liked, he
was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry
lawyer, when the light-hearted and the loose-
tongued had already their foot on the threshold ;
they liked to sit awhile in his unobtrusive com-
pany, practising for solitude, sobering their minds
in the man's rich silence after the expense and
strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr. Jekyll was no
exception ; and as he now sat on the opposite
side of the fire — a large, well-made, smooth-faced

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE 31

man of fifty, with sometliing of a slyisli cast
perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kind-
ness— you could see by his looks that he cherished
for Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection.

^ I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll/
began the latter. ' You know that will of
yours ? '

A close observer might have gathered that the
topic was distasteful ; but the doctor carried it off
gaily. ' My poor Utterson,' said he, ' you are
unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man
so distressed as you were by my will ; unless it
were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he
called my scientific heresies. 0, I know he's a

good fellow — you needn't frown — an excellent

fellow, and I always mean to see more of him ;

but a hide-bound pedant for all that ; an ignorant,

blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed

in any man than Lanyon.'

' You know I never approved of it/ pursued

Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic.
/ My will ? Yes, certainly, I know that,' said

the doctor, a trifle sharply. ' You have told me so.'

32 DK. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

^ Well, I tell you so again,' continued tlie
lawyer. ' I have been learning something of
young Hyde.'

The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew
pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness
about his eyes. ' I do not care to hear more,' said
he. ' This is a matter I thought we had agreed
to drop.'

^ What I heard was abominable,' said Utter-
son.

' It can make no change. You do not under-
stand my position,' returned the doctor, with a
certain incoherency of manner. ' I am painfully
situated, Utterson ; my position is a very strange
— a very strange one. It is one of those affairs
that cannot be mended by talking.'

' Jekyll,' said Utterson, ' you know me : I am
a man to be trusted. Make a clean breast of this
in confidence ; and I make no doubt I can get
you out of it.'

' My good Utterson,' said the doctor, ^ this is
very good of you, this is downright good of you,
and I cannot find words to thank you in. I

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE 33

believe you fully ; I would trust you before any
man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the
choice ; but indeed it isn't what you fancy ; it is
not so bad as that ; and just to put your good
heart at rest, I will tell you one thing : the
moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde.
I give you my hand upon that ; and I thank you
again and again ; and I will just add one little
word, Utterson, that I'm sure you'll take in good
part : this is a private matter, and I beg of you
to let it sleep.'

Utterson reflected a little looking in the fire.

' I have no doubt you are perfectly right,' he
said at last, getting to his feet.

^ Well, but since we have touched upon this
business, and for the last time I hope,' continued
the doctor, ' there is one point I should like
you to understand. I have really a very great
interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen him ;
he told me so ; and I fear he was rude. But I do
sincerely take a great, a very great interest in
that young man ; and if I am taken away, Utter-
son, I wish you to promise me that you will bear

D

34 mi. JEKYLL AND Mil. HYDE

with liim and get liis rights for him. I thi«ik
you woiikl, if you knew all ; and it would be a
weight off my mind if you would promise.'

^I can't pretend that I shall ever like him/
said the lawyer.

' I don't ask that/ pleaded Jekyll, laying his
hand upon the other's arm ; ' I only ask for
justice ; I only ask you to help him for my sake,
when I am no longer here.'

Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. ^ Well/
said he. ^ I promise.'

35

THE GABJEW MURDER CASE.

Nearly a year later, in the month of October
18 — , London was startled by a crime of singular
ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the
high position of the victim. The details were
few and startling. A maid servant living alone
in a house not far from the river, had gone up-
stairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled
over the city in the small hours, the early part of
the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the
jn aid's window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by
the full moon. It seems she was romantically
given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood
immediately under the window, and fell into a
.dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with
streaming tears, when she narrated that experi-
ence) never had she felt more at peace with all
men or thought more kindly of the world. And

36 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

as slie so sat she became aware of an aged and
beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing
near along the lane ; and advancing to meet him,
another and very small gentleman, to whom at
first she paid less attention. When they had come
within speech (which was just under the maid's
eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other
wdth a very pretty manner of politeness. It did
not seem as if the subject of his address were
of great importance ; indeed, from his pointing, it
sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring
his way ; but the moon shone on his face as he
spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it
seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world
kindness of disposition, yet with, something high
too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently
her eye wandered to the other, and she was sur-
prised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde,
who had once visited her master and for whom
she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand
a heavy cane, with w^liich he was trifling ; but he
answered never a word, and seemed to listen with
an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 37

sudden lie broke out in a great flame of anger,
stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and
carrying on (as the maid described it) like a mad-
man. The old gentleman took a step back, with
the air of one very much surprised and a trifle
hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all
bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next
moment, with ape-like fury, he w^as trampling his
victim under foot, and hailing down a storm of
blows, under which the bones w^ere audibly shat-
tered and the body jumped upon the roadway.
At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid
fainted.

It was two o'clock w^hen she came to herself and
called for the police. The murderer was gone long
ago ; but there lay his victim in the middle of the
lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which
the deed had been done, although it was of some
rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken
in the middle under the stress of this insensate
cruelty ; and one splintered half had rolled in the
neighbouring gutter — the other, without doubt,
had been carried aw^ay by the murderer. A purse

38 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

and a gold watch were found upon the victim ; but
no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped
envelope, which he had been probably carrying to
the post, and which bore the name and address of
Mr. Utterson.

This was brought to the lawyer the next morn-
ing, before he was out of bed ; and he had no
sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances,
than he shot out a solemn lip. ' I shall say
nothing till I have seen the body,' said he ; ' this
may be very. serious. Have the kindness to wait
while I dress.' And with the same grave counte-
nance he hurried through his breakfast and drove
to the police station, whither the body had been
carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he
nodded.

^ Yes,' said he, ' I recognise him. I am sorry to
say that this is Sir Danvers Carew.'

'Good God, sir,' exclaimed the officer, 4s it
possible ? ' And the next moment his eye lighted
up with professional ambition. ' This will make
a deal of noise,' he said. ' And perhaps you can
help us to the man.' And he briefly narrated

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 39

what the maid had seen, and showed the broken
stick.

Mr. tJtterson had already quailed at the name
of Hyde ; but when the stick was laid before him,
he could doubt no longer : broken and battered as it
was, he recognised it for one that he had himself
presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

^ Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature ? '
lie inquired.

' Particularly small and particularly wicked-
looking, is what the maid calls him,' said the
officer.

Mr. Utterson reflected ; and then, raising his
head, ' If you will come with me in my cab,' he
said, ' I think I can take you to his house.'

It was by this time about nine in the morning,
and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-
coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was
continually charging and routing these embattled
vapours ; so that as the cab crawled from street
to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvellous number
of degrees and hues of twilight ; for here it would
be dark like the back-end of evening ; and there

40 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the
light of some strange conflagration ; and here, for
a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and
a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in be-
tween the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter
of Soho seen under these changing glimpses,
with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers,
and its lamps, which had never been extinguished
or had been kindled afresh to combat this mourn-
ful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's
eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.
The thoughts of his mind, besides, were of the
gloomiest dye ; and when he glanced at the com-
panion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch
of that terror of the law and the law's officers,
which may at times assail the most honest.

As the cab drew ujd before the address indi-
cated, the fog lifted a little and showed him a
dingy street, a gin palace, a low French eating
house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and
twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled
in the doorways, and many women of many
different nationalities passing out, key in hand.

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 41

to have a morning glass ; and the next moment
the fog settled down again upon that part, as
brown as umber, and cut him off from his black-
guardly surroundings. This was the home of
Henry Jekyll's favourite ; of a man who was
heir to quarter of a million sterling.

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman
opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed
by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.
Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was
not at home ; he had been in that night very late,
but had gone away again in less than an hour ;
there was nothing strange in that; his habits were
very irregular, and he was often absent; for
instance, it was nearly two months since she had
seen him till yesterday.

' Very well then, we wish to see his rooms,'
said the lawyer ; and when the woman began to
declare it was impossible, ^ I had better tell you
who this person is,' he added. ' This is Inspector
Newcomen of Scotland Yard.'

A flash of odious joy appeared upon the
woman's face. ^ Ah ! ' said she, ' he is in trouble !
What has he done ? '

42 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged
glances. ^ He don't seem a very popular cha-
racter/ observed the latter. ' And now, my good
woman, just let me and this gentleman have a
look about us.'

In the whole extent of the house, which but
for the old woman remained otherwise empty,
Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms ; but
these were furnished with luxury and good taste.
A closet was filled with wine ; the plate was of
silver, the napery elegant ; a good picture hung
upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed)
from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connois-
seur; and the carpets were of many plies and
agreeable in colour. At this moment, however,
the rooms bore every mark of having been recently
and hurriedly ransacked ; clothes lay about the
floor, with their pockets inside out ; lockfast
drawers stood open ; and on the hearth there lay
a pile of gray ashes, as though many papers had
been burned. From these embers the inspector
disinterred the butt end of a green cheque book,
which had resisted the action of the fire ; the

THE CARE W MURDER CASE 43

other half of the stick was found behind the door ;
and as this clinched his suspicions, the officer
declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank,
where several thousand pounds were found to be
lying to the murderer's credit, completed his
gratification.

' You may depend upon it, sir,' he told Mr.
Utterson : ' I have him in my hand. He must
have lost his head, or he never would have left
the stick or, above all, burned the cheque book.
Why, money's life to the man. We have nothing
to do but wait for him at the bank, and get out
the handbills.'

This last, however, was not so easy of accom-
plishment ; for Mr. Hyde had numbered few
familiars — even the master of the servant maid
had only seen him twice ; his family could no-
where be traced; he had never been photo-
graphed ; and the few who could describe him
differed widely, as common observers will. Only
on one point, were they agreed ; and that was
the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with
which the fugitive impressed his beholders.

44 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER.

It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson
found his way to Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was
at once admitted by Poole, and carried down by
the kitchen offices and across a ^^ard which had
once been a garden, to the building which was
indifferently known as the laboratory or the dis-
secting rooms. The doctor had bought the house
from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon ; and his
own tastes being rather chemical than anatomical,
had changed, the destination of the block at the
bottom of the. garden. It was the first time that
the lawyer had been received in that part of his
friend's quarters ; and he eyed the dingy window-
less structure with curiosity, and gazed round
with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he
crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager
students and now lying gaunt and silent, the

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 45

tables laden with cliemical apparatus, the floor
strewn wdth crates and littered with packing
straw, and the light falling dimly through the
foggy cupola. At the further end, a flight of stairs
mounted to a door covered with red baize ; and
through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received into
the doctor's cabinet. It was a large room, fitted
round with glass presses, furnished, among other
things, with a cheval-glass and a business table,
and looking out upon the court by three dusty
windows barred with iron. The fire burned in
the grate ; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney
shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie
thickly ; and there, close up to the warmth, sat
Dr. Jekyll, looking deadly sick. He did not rise
to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and
bade him welcome in a changed voice.

' And now,' said Mr. Utterson, as soon as
Poole had left them, ' you have heard the new^s ? '

The doctor shuddered. ^ They were crying it
in the square,' he said. ' I heard them in my
dining room.'

* One word,' said the lawyer. ' Carew w^as my

46 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

client, but so are you, and I want to know what I
am doing. You have not been mad enough to
hide this fellow ? '

' Utterson, I swear to God/ cried the doctor,
^I swear to God I will never set eyes on him
again. I bind my honour to you that I am done
with him in this world. It is all at an end. And
indeed he does not want my help; you do not
know him as I do ; he is safe, he is quite safe ;
mark my words, he will never more be heard of.'

The lawyer listened gloomily ; he did not like
his friend's feverish manner. ' You seem pretty
sure of him,' said he ; ' and for your sake, I hope
you may be right. If it came to a trial, your name
might appear.'

' I am quite sure of him,' replied Jekyll ; • I
have grounds for certainty that I cannot share
with anyone. But there is one thing on which
you may advise me. I have — I have received a
letter ; and I am at a loss whether I should show
it to the police. I should like to leave it in your
hands, Utterson ; you would judge wisely I am
sure ; I have so great a trust in you.'

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 47

' You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his
detection ? ' asked the lawyer.

^ No/ said the other. ' I cannot say that I care
what becomes of Hyde; I am quite done with
him. I was thinking of my own character, which
this hateful business has rather exposed.'

■ Utterson ruminated awhile ; he was surprised
at his friend's selfishness, and yet relieved by
it. ' Well,' said he, at last, ^ let me see the
letter.'

The letter was written in an odd, upright
hand and signed ^ Edward Hyde ' : and it signi-
fied, briefly enough, that the writer's benefactor,
Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid
for a thousand generosities, need labour under no
alarm for his safety as he had means of escape on
which he placed a sure dependence. The lawyer
liked this letter well enough; it put a better
colour on the intimacy than he had looked for;
and he blamed himself for some of his past sus-
picions.

^ Have you the envelope ? ' he asked.

^ I burned it,' replied Jekyll, ' before 1 thought

48 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

wliat I was about. But it bore no postmark. The
note was banded in.'

' Shall I keep this and sleep upon it ? ' asked
Utterson.

^I wish you to judge for me entirely,' was the
reply. ' I have lost confidence in myself.'

' Well, I shall consider/ returned the lawyer.
' And now one word more : it was Hyde who
dictated the terms in your will about that dis-
appearance ? '

The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of
faintness; he shut his mouth tight and nodded.

' I knew it/ said Utterson. ' He meant to
murder you. You have had a fine escape.'

' I have had what is far more to the purpose/
returned the doctor solemnly : ' I have had a
lesson — 0 God, Utterson, what a lesson I have
had ! ' And he covered his face for a moment
with his hands.

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a
word or two with Poole. ' By the by,' said he,
' there was a letter handed in to-day : what w^as
the messenger like ? ' But Poole was positive

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 49

nothing had come except by post ; ^ and only
circulars by that/ he added.

This news sent off the visitor with his
fears renewed. Plainly the letter had come by
the laboratory door; possibly, indeed, it had
been written in the cabinet ; and if that were
so, it must be differently judged, and handled
with the more caution. The newsboys, as he
went, were crying themselves hoarse along the
footways : ^ Special edition. Shocking murder of
an M.P.' That was the funeral oration of one
friend and client ; and he could not help a certain
apprehension lest the good name of another
should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.
It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to
make ; and self-reliant as he was by habit, he
began to cherish a longing for advice. It was
not to be had directly ; but perhaps, he thought,
it might be fished for.

Presently after, he sat on one side of his own
hearth, with Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon
the other, and midway between, at a nicely
calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a

E

50 DK. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned
in the foundations of his house. The fog still
slept on the wing above the drowned city, where
the lamps glimmered like carbuncles ; and through
the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the
procession of the town's life was still rolling in
through the great arteries wdtli a sound as of a
mighty wind. But the room was gay with fire-
light. In the bottle the acids were long -ago
resolved ; the imperial dye had softened w^ith
time, as the colour grows richer in stained
windows ; and the glow of hot autumn afternoons
on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and
to disperse the fogs of London. Insensibly the
lawyer melted. There w^as no man from whom
he kept few^er secrets than Mr. Guest; and he
was not alw^ays sure that he kept as many as he
meant. Guest had often been on business to the
doctor's ; he knew Poole ; he could scarce have
failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
house ; he might draw conclusions : was it not as
well, then, that he should see a letter which put
that mystery to rights ? and above all since

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 51

Guest, being a great student and critic of hand-
writing, would consider the step natural and
obliging? The clerk, besides, was a man of
counsel ; he would scarce read so strange a docu-
ment without dropping a remark; and by that
remark Mr. Utterson might shape his future
course.

' This is a sad business about Sir Dan vers,' he
said.

' Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great
deal of public feeling,' returned Guest. ' The
man, of course, was mad.'

' I should like to hear your views on that,'
replied Utterson. ' I have a document here in
his handwriting ; it is between ourselves, for I
scarce know what to do about it ; it is an ugly
business at the best. But there it is ; quite in
your way : a murderer's autograph.'

Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at
once and studied it with passion. ' No, sir,' he
said ; ^ not mad ; but it is an odd hand.'

'And by all accounts a very odd writer,'
added the lawyer.

IR 2

52 DR. JEICYLL AND MR. HYDE

Just then the servant entered with a note.

' Is that from Doctor Jekyll, sir ? ' inquired
the clerk. ' I thought I knew the writing. Any-
thing private, Mr. Utterson ? '

' Only an invitation to dinner. Why ? do you
want to see it ? '

' One moment. I thank you, sir ; ' and the
clerk laid the two sheets of paper alongside and
sedulously compared their contents. ' Thank you,
sir,' he said at last, returning both; ^ it's a very
interesting autograph.'

There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson
struggled with himself. ' Why did you compare
them. Guest ? ' he inquired suddenly.

'Well, sir,' returned the clerk, there's a
rather singular resemblance ; the two hands are
in many points identical : only differently sloped.'

' Kather quaint,' said Utterson.

' It is, as you say, rather quaint,' returned
Guest.

' I wouldn't speak of this note, you know,'
said the master.

' No, sir,' said the clerk. ' I understand.'

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 53

But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone tliat
niglit, than lie locked the note into his safe where
it reposed from that time forward. ' AVhat ! ' he
thought. ^ Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer ! '
And his blood ran cold in his veins.

54 DR. JEKYLL AND MK. HYDE

REMABKABLE INCIDENT OF DOCTOR
LANYON

Time ran on ; thousands of pounds were
offered in reward, for the death of Sir Danvers
was resented as a public injury; but Mr. Hyde
had disappeared out of the ken of the police as
though he had never existed. Much of his past
was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable : tales
came out of the man's cruelty, at once so callous
and violent, of his vile life, of his strange asso-
ciates, of the hatred that seemed to have sur-
rounded his career ; but of his present where-
abouts, not a whisper. From the time he had
left the house in Soho on the morning of the
murder, he was simply blotted out ; and gradu-
ally, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to
recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow
more at quiet witli liiuiself Tlie death of iSir

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 55

Danvers was, to his way of thinking, more than
paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now
that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a
new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He came out
of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends,
became once more their familiar guest and enter-
tainer ; and whilst he had always been known for
charities, he was now no less distinguished for
religion. He was busy, he was much in the open
air, he did good ; his face seemed to open and
brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of
service ; and for more than two months, the
doctor was at peace.

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at
the doctor's with a small party ; Lanyon had been
there ; and the face of the host had looked from one
to the other as in the old days when the trio were
inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on
the 14th, the door was shut against the lawyer.
' The doctor was confined to the house,' Poole said,
' and saw no one.' On the 15th, he tried again,
and was again refused; and having now been
used for the last two months to see his friend

56 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

almost daily, lie found this return of solitude to
weigh upon his spirits. The fifth night, he had in
Guest to dine with him ; and the sixth he betook
himself to Doctor Lanyon's.

There at least he was not denied admittance ;
but when he came in, he was shocked at the
change which had taken place in the doctor's
appearance. He had his death-warrant written
legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown
pale ; his flesh had fallen away ; he was visibly
balder and older ; and yet it was not so much
these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested
the lawyer's notice, as a look in the eye and
quality of manner that seemed to testify to some
deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely
that the doctor should fear death ; and yet that
was what Utterson was tempted to suspect.
' Yes,' he thought ; ^ he is a doctor, he must
know his own state and that his days are counted;
and the knowledge is more than he can bear.'
And yet when Utterson remarked on his ill-looks,
it was with an air of great firmness that Lanyon
declared himself a doomed man.

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYOX 57

^I liave had a shock/ he said, ^and I shall
never recover. It is a question of weeks. Well,
life has been pleasant ; I liked it ; yes, sir, I used
to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we
should be more glad to get away.'

' Jekyll is ill, too,' observed Utterson. ^ Have
you seen him ? '

But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a
trembling hand. ^ I wish to see or hear no more
of Doctor Jekyll/ he said in a loud, unsteady
voice. ' I am quite done with that person ; and I
beg that you will spare me any allusion to one
whom I regard as dead.'

^ Tut-tut,' said Mr. Utterson ; and then after a
considerable pause, ^ Can't I do anything ? ' he
inquired. ^ We are three very old friends,
Lanyon ; we shall not live to make others.'

' Nothing can be done,' returned Lanyon ; ' ask
himself.'

' He will not see me,' said the lawyer.

' I am not surprised at that,' was the reply.
' Some day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may
perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this.

68 BH. JEKYLL AxM) MK. HYDE

.1 cannot tell you. And in tlie meantime, if you
can sit and talk with me of other things, for God's
sake, stay and do so ; but if you cannot keep clear
of this accursed topic, then, in God's name, go,
for I cannot bear it.'

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down
and wrote to Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion
from the house, and asking the cause of this un-
happy break with Lanyon ; and the next day
brought him a long answer, often very pathetically
worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in drift.
The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. ^ I do
not blame our old friend,' Jekyll wrote, ^ but I share
his view that we must never meet. I mean from
henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion ;
you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt
my friendship, if my door is often shut even to
you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way.
I have brought on myself a punishment and a
danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief
of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I could
not think that this earth contained a place for
sufferinefs and terrors so unmanninof ; and vou can

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 59

do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny,
and that is to respect my silence/ Utterson was
amazed ; the dark influence of Hyde had been with-
drawn, the doctor had returned to his old tasks
and amities ; a week ago, the prospect had smiled
with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured
age ; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace
of mind and the whole tenor of his life were
wrecked. So great and unprepared a change
pointed to madness ; but in view of Lanyon's
manner and words, there must lie for it some
deeper ground.

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed,
and in something less than a fortnight he was
dead. The night after the funeral, at which he
had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door
of his business room, and sitting there by the light
of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before
him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed
with the seal of his dead friend. ^ Private : for
the hands of J. G. Utterson alone and in case of
his predecease to he destroyed iinreadj so it was
emphatically superscribed ; and the lawyer dreaded

60 Dll. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

to beliold the contents. ^ I have buried one friend
to-day/ he thought : ' what if this should cost me
another ? ' And then he condemned the fear as
a disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there
was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked
upon the cover as ' not to be opened till the death
or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll.' Utterson
could not trust his eyes. Yes, it was disappear-
ance ; here again, as in the mad will which he
had long ago restored to its author, here again were
the idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry
Jekyll bracketed. But in the will, that idea
had sprung from the sinister suggestion of the
man Hyde ; it was set there w^ith a purpose all
too ]3lain and horrible. Written by the hand of
Lanyon, what should it mean ? A great curiosity
came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition
and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries ;
but professional honour and faith to his dead friend
were stringent obligations ; and the packet slept
in the inmost corner of his private safe.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another
to conquer it ; and it may be doubted if, from that

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON Gl

day forth, Utterson desired the society of his
surviving friend with the same eagerness. He
thought of him kindly ; but his thoughts were
disquieted and fearful. He went to call indeed ;
but he was perhaps relieved to be denied admit-
tance ; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak
with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by
the air and sounds of the open city, rather than
to be admitted into that house of voluntary
bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable
recluse. Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news
to communicate. The doctor, it appeared, now
more than ever confined himself to the cabinet
over the laboratory, where he would sometimes
even sleep ; he was out of spirits, he had grown
very silent, he did not read ; it seemed as if he
had something on his mind. Utterson became so
used to the unvarying character of these reports,
that he fell off little by little in the frequency of
his visits.

62 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW.

It clianced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was
on his usual walk with Mr. Enfield, that their
way lay once again through the bystreet ; and
that when they came in front of the door, both
stopped to gaze on it.

' Well,' said Enfield, ' that story's at an end
at least. We shall never see more of Mr. Hyde.'

* I hope not,' said Utterson. ' Did I ever tell
you that I once saw him, and shared your feeling
of repulsion ? '

' It was impossible to do the one without the
other,' returned Enfield. ' And by the way what
an ass you must have thought me, not to know
that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll's ! It
was partly your own fault that I found it out,
even when I did.'

'So you found it out, did you?' said Utterson.

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 63

' But if that be so, we may step into the court
and take a look at the windows. To tell you the
truth, I am uneasy about poor Jekyll ; and even
outside, I feel as if the presence of a friend might
do him good.'

The court was very cool and a little damp,
and full of premature twilight, although the sky,
high up overhead, was still bright with sunset.
The middle one of the three windows was half
way open ; and sitting close beside it, taking the
air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some
disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jek}^].

' What ! Jekyll ! ' he cried. ' I trust you are
better.'

^ I am very low, Utterson,' replied the doctor
drearily, ' very low. It will not last long, thank
God.'

' You stay too much indoors,' said the lawyer.
' You should be out, whipping up the circulation
like Mr. Enfield and me. (This is my cousin —
Mr. Enfield — Dr. Jekyll.) Come now ; get your
hat and take a quick turn with us.'

'You are very good,' sighed the other. 'I

64 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

sliould like to very much ; but no, no, no, it is
quite impossible ; I dare not. But indeed, Utter-
son, I am very glad to see you ; this is really a
great pleasure ; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield
up, but the place is really not fit.'

' Why then,' said the lawyer, good-naturedly,
^ the best thing we can do is to stay down here
and speak with you from where we are.'

' That is just what I was about to venture to
propose,' returned the doctor with a smile. But
the words were hardly uttered, before the smile
was struck out of his face and succeeded by an
expression of such abject terror and despair, as
froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below.
They saw it but for a glimpse, for the window^
was instantly thrust down ; but that glimpse had
been sufficient, and they turned and left the
court without a word. In silence, too, they
traversed the bystreet ; and it was not until they
had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare,
where even upon a Sunday there were still some
stirrings of life, that Mr. Utterson at last turned
and looked at his companion. They were both

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 6b

piile ; and there was an answering liorror in tlieir
eyes.

'God forgive us, God forgive us/ said Mr.
Utterson.

But Mr. Enfield only nodded liis Lead very
seriously, and walked on once more in silence.

66 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

THE LAST NIGHT,

Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one
evening after dinner, wlien lie was surprised to
receive a visit from Poole.

' Bless me, Poole, wliat brings you here ? '
he cried ; and then taking a second look at
him, ' What ails you ? ' he added, ^ is the doctor
ill?'

^ Mr. Utterson,' said the man, ' there is some-
thing wrong.'

' Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for
you,' said the lawyer. ' Now, take your time, and
tell me plainly what you want.'

'You know the doctors Avays, sir,' replied

. Poole, ^ and how he shuts himself up. Well, he's

shut up again in the cabinet ; and I don't like it,

sir — I wish I may die if I like it. ]\Ir. Utterson,

sir, I'm afraid.'

THE LAST NIGHT 67

^ Now, my good man/ said the lawyer, ' be
explicit. What are you afraid of ? '

^ I've been afraid for about a week/ returned
I^oole, doggedly disregarding the question, ' and I
can bear it no more.'

The man's appearance amply bore out his
words ; his manner was altered for the worse ; and
except for the moment when he had first an-
nounced his terror, he had not once looked the
lawyer in the face. Even now, he sat with the
glass of wine untasted on his knee, and his eyes
directed to a corner of the floor. ' I can bear it
no more,' he repeated.

' Come,' said the lawyer, ' I see you have some
good reason, Poole ; I see there is something
seriously amiss. Try to tell me what it is.'

^I think there's been foul play,' said Poole,
hoarsely.

' Foul play ! ' cried the lawyer, a good deal
frightened and rather inclined to be irritated in
consequence. What foul play ? What does the
man mean ? '

F 2

68 DK. JEKYLL AND MH. HYDE

' I daren't say, sir/ Avas tlie answer ; ' but Avill
you come along with me and see for yourself?'

Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and
get his hat and great coat ; but he observed with
wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared
upon the butler's face^ and perhaps with no less,
that the wine was still untasted when he set it
down to follow.

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March,
with a pale moon, lying on her back as though
the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the
most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind
made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into
the face. It seemed to have swept the streets
unusually bare of passengers, besides; for Mr.
Utterson thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted. He could have wished it
otherwise ; never in his life had he been conscious
of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow-
creatures ; for struggle as he might, there was
borne in upon his mind a crushing anticij^ation of
calamity. The square, when they got there, was
all full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the

THE LAST NIGHT G9

garden were lashing themselves along the railing!
Poole, who had kept all the way a pace or two
aheadj now pulled up in the middle of the pave-
ment, and in spite of the biting weather, took off
his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket-
handkerchief. But for all the hurry of his coming,
these were not the dews of exertion that he wiped
avv^ay, but the moisture of some strangling anguish ;
for his face was white and his voice, when he spoke,
harsh and broken.

' Well, sir,' he said, ^ here we are, and God
grant there be nothing wrong.'

' Amen, Poole,' said the lawyer.

Thereupon the servant knocked in a very
guarded manner; the door was opened on the
chain ; and a voice asked from within, ^ Is that you,
Poole?'

' It's all right,' said Poole. ^ Open the door.'

The hall, when they entered it, was brightly
lighted up; the fire was built high; and about
the hearth the whole of the servants, men and
women, stood huddled together like a flock of
sheep. At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the house-

70 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE •

lu^ii'i broke into liyt>terical Avliimpering ; and
tlie cook, crying out ^ Bless God ! it's Mr.
Utterson/ ran forward as if to take him in her
arms.

' What, what ? Are you all here ? ' said the
lawyer peevishly. ' Very irregular, very unseemly ;
your master would be far from pleased.'

^ They're all afraid/ said Poole.

Blank silence followed, no one protesting ;
only the maid lifted up her voice and now wept
loudly.

' Hold your tongue ! ' Poole said to her, witli
a ferocity of accent that testified to his own jangled
nerves ; and indeed, when the girl had so suddenly
raised the note of lier lamentation, they had all
started and turned towards the inner door with
faces of dreadful expectation. ^ And now,' con-
tinued the butler, addressing the knife-boy,
' reach me a candle, and we'll get this through
hands at once.' And then he begged Mr. Utter-
son to follow him, and led the way to the back
garden.

^Now, sir,' said he, ^you come as gently as

THE LxiST NIGHT 71

you can. I want you to hear, and I don't want
you to be heard. And see here, sir, if by any
cliance lie was to ask you in, don't go.'

Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for
termination, gave a jerk that nearly threw him
from his balance ; but he recollected his couragfe
and followed the butler into the laboratory building
and through the surgical theatre, with its lumber
of crates and bottles, to the foot of the stair.
Here Poole motioned him to stand on one side
and listen; while he himself, setting down the
candle and making a great and obvious call on Iiis
resolution, mounted the steps and knocked with
a somewhat uncertain hand on the red baize of the
cabinet door.

'Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you,' he called ;
and even as he did so, once more violently signed
to the lawyer to give ear.

A voice ansYfered from within : ' Tell him I
cannot see anyone,' it said complainingly.

' Thank you, sir,' said Poole, with a note of some-
thing like triumph in his voice ; and taking up
his candle, he led Mr. Utterson back across the

72 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

yard and into the great kitchen, where the fire
was out and the beetles were leaping on the
floor.

^ Sir/ he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the
eyes, ' was that my master's voice ? '

' It seems much changed,' replied the lawyer,
very pale, but giving look for look.

' Changed ? Well, yes, I think so,' said the
butler. ' Have I been twenty years in this man's
house, to be deceived about his voice ? No, sir ;
master's made away with ; he was made away
with, eight days ago, when we heard him cry out
upon the name of God ; and ivho's in there instead
of him, and ivhy it stays there, is a thing that cries
to Heaven, Mr. Utterson ! '

^ This is a very strange tale, Poole ; this is
rather a wdld tale, my man,' said Mr. Utterson,
biting his finger. ' Suppose it were as you
suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been — well,
murdered, what could induce the murderer to
stay ? That won't hold water ; it doesn't commend
itself to reason.'

' Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to

THE LAST NIGHT 73

satisfy, but 1*11 do it yet/ said Poole. ' All this
last week (you must know) liim, or it, or wliatever
it is tliat lives in tliat cabinet, has been crying
night and day for some sort of medicine and
cannot get it to his mind. It was sometimes his
way — the master's, that is — to write his orders
on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
We've had nothing else this week back ; nothing
but papers, and a closed door, and the very meals
left there to be smuggled in when nobody was
looking. Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and
thrice in the same day, there have been orders
and complaints, and I have been sent flying to all
the wholesale chemists in town. Every time I
brought the stuff back, there would be another
paper telling me to return it, because it was
not pure, and another order to a different firm.
This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir, wliatever
for.'

' Have you any of these papers ? ' asked Mr.
Utter son.

Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a
crumpled note, which the lawyer, bending nearer

74 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

to the candle, carefully examined. Its contents
ran tluis : ' Dr. J ekyll presents liis compliments
to Messrs. Maw. He assures them that their last
sample is impure and quite useless for his present
purpose. In the year 18—-, Dr. J. purchased a
somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M. He
now begs them to search with the most sedulous
care, and should any of the same quality be left,
to forward it to him at once. Expense is no
consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J.
can hardly be exaggerated.' So far the letter had
run composedly enough, but here with a sudden
splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had
broken loose. ' For God's sake,' he had added,
^ find me some of the old.'

' This is a strange note,' said Mr. Utterson ;
and then sharply, ' How do you come to have it
open ? '

' The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and
he threw it back to me like so much dirt,' returned
Poole.

' This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do
you know ? ' resumed the lawyer.

THE LAST mGWT 75

^ I tlionglit it looked like it/ said the servant
ratlier sulkily; and then, with another voice,
' But what matters hand of write/ he said. ' I've
seen him ! '

' Seen him ? ' repeated Mr. Utterson. ' Well ? '

' That's it ! ' said Poole. ' It was this way.
I came suddenly into the theatre from the garden.
It seems he had slipped out to look for this drug
or whatever it is ; for the cabinet door was open,
and there he was at the far end of the room
digging among the crates. He looked up when I
came in, gave a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs
into the cabinet. It was but Ibr one minute that
I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like
quills. Sir, if that was my master, why' had he a
mask upon his face ? If it was my master, why
did he cry out like a rat, -and run from me ? I
have served him long enough. And then . . .'
the man paused and passed his hand over his
face.

' These are all very strange circumstances,'
said Mr. Utterson, 'but I think I begin to see
daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly seized

76 DR. JEKYLL AXD MR. HYDE

with one of those maladies that both torture and
deform the sufferer ; hence, for aught I know, tlie
alteration of his voice ; hence the mask and his
avoidance of his friends ; hence his eagerness to
find this drug, by means of which the poor soul
retains some hope of ultimate recovery — God
grant that he be not deceived! There is my
explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and
appalling to consider ; but it is plain and natural,
hangs well together and delivers us from all
exorbitant alarms.'

' Sir,' said the butler, turning to a sort of
mottled pallor, ' that thing was not my master,
and there's the truth. My master ' — here he
looked round him and began to whisper — ^ is a
tall fine build of a man, and this was more of a
dwarf.' Utterson attempted to j^i'otest. ' 0,
sir,' cried Poole, ^ do you think I do not know my
master after twenty years ? do you think I do not
know where his head comes to in the cabinet
door, where I saw him every morning of my life ?
No, sir, that thing in the mask w^as never Doctor
Jekyll — God knows what it was, but it was never

THE LAST NIGHT 77

Doctor Jekyll ; and it is the belief of my heart
that there was murder done.'

' Poole/ replied the lawyer, ^ if you say that,
it will become my duty to make certain. Much
as I desire to spare your master s feelings, much
as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove
him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty
to break in that door.'

' Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking ! ' cried the
butler.

^ And now comes the second question,' resumed
Utterson : ' Who is going to do it ? '

' Why, you and me, sir,' was the undaunted
reply.

^ That is very well said,' returned the lawyer ;
' and whatever comes of it, I shall make it my
business to see you are no loser.'

^ There is an axe in the theatre,' continued
Poole ; ^ and you might take the kitchen poker
for yourself.'

The lawyer took that rude but weighty instru-
ment into his hand, and balanced it. ^ Do you
know Poole,' he said, looking up, ^ that you and I

78 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

are about to place ourselves in a position of some
peril ? '

' You may say so, sir, indeed/ returned the
butler.

' It is well, tlien, that we should be frank,'
said the other. ^ We both think more than we
have said; let us make a clean breast. This
masked figure that you saw, did you recognise
it?'

' Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature
was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear to
that,' was the answer. ' But if you mean, was it
Mr. Hyde ? — why, yes, I think it was ! You see,
it was much of the same bigness ; and it had the
same quick light way with it ; and then who else
could have got in by the laboratory door ? You
have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder
he had still the key with him ? But that's not all.
I don't know, Mr. Utterson, if ever you met this
Mr. Hyde?'

' Yes,' said the lawyer, ^ I once spoke with
him.'

' Then you must know as well as the rest of

THE LAST NIGHT 79

US that there was something queer about that
gentleman — something that gave a man a turn —
I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond
this : that you felt it in your marrow kind of cold
and thin.'

' I own I felt something of what you describe,'
said Mr. Utterson.

' Quite so, sir,' returned Poole. ' Well, when
that masked thing like a monkey jumped from
among the chemicals and whipped into the
cabinet, it went doAvn my spine like ice. • 0, I
know it's not evidence, ]\Ir. Utterson ; I'm book-
learned enough for that ; but a man has his
feelings, and I give you my bible-word it was Mr.
Hyde ! '

^ Ay, ay,' said the lawyer. ^ My fears incline
to the same point. Evil, T fear, founded— evil
was sure to come — of that connection. Ay, truly,
I believe you ; I believe poor Harry is killed ;
and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God
alone can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room.
Well, let our name be vengeance. Call Brad-
shaw.'

80 DK. JEKYLL AND MK. HYDE

The footman came at the summonSj very
white and nervous.

' Pull yourself together, Bradshaw,' said the
lawyer. ' This suspense, I know, is telling upon
all of you ; but it is now our intention to make
an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to
force our way into the cabinet. If all is well,
my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame.
Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss,
or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you
and the boy must go round the corner with a pair
of good sticks, and take your post at the labora-
tory door. We give you ten minutes, to get to
your stations.'

As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his
watch. ' And now, Poole, let us get to ours,' he
S£}id; and taking the poker under his arm, he led
the way into the yard. The scud had banked
over the moon, and it w^as now quite dark. The
wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts
into that deep well of building, tossed the light
of the candle to and fro about their steps, until
they came into the shelter of the theatre, where

THE LAST NIGHT 81

tliey sat clown silently to wait. London Immined
solemnly all around ; but nearer at hand, the still-
ness was only broken by the sound of a footfall
moving to and fro along the cabinet floor.

^ So it will walk all day, sir,' whispered
Poole ; ^ ay, and the better part of the night.
Only when a new sample comes from the chemist,
there's a bit of a break. Ah, it's an ill-conscience
that's such an enemy to rest ! Ah, sir, there's
blood foully shed in every step of it ! But hark
again, a little closer — put your heart in your ears
Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the doctor's
foot?'

The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a
certain swing, for all they went so slowly ; it was
different indeed from the heavy creaking tread
of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. ' Is there
never anything else ? ' he asked.

Poole nodded. ' Once,' he said. ^ Once I
heard it weeping ! '

' Weeping ? how that ? ' said the lawyer, con-
scious of a sudden chill of horror.

^ Weeping like a woman or a lost soul,' said

G

82 DK. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

the butler. ' I came away with that upon my
heart, that I could have wept too.'

But now the ten minutes drew to an end.
Poole disinterred the axe from under a stack of
packing straw ; the candle was set upon the
nearest table to light them to the attack; and
they drew near with bated breath to where that
patient foot was still going u]3 and down, up and
down, in the quiet of the night.

' Jekyll/ cried Utterson, with a loud voice,
' I demand to see you.' He paused a moment, but
there came no reply. ' I give you fair warning,
our suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall
see you,' he resumed ; ' if not by fair means, then
by foul — if not of your consent, then by brute
force ! '

' Utterson,' said the voice, ' for God s sake,
have mercy ! '

' Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice— it's Hyde's ! '
cried Utterson. ' Down wdth the door, Poole.'

Poole swung the axe over his shoulder ; the
blow shook the building, and the red baize door
leaped against the lock and hinges. A dismal

THE LAST NIGHT bo

screechj as of mere animal terror, rang from the
cabinet. Up went tlie axe again, and again the
panels crashed and the frame bonnded ; finr
times the blow fell ; but the wood was touofh and
the fittings were of excellent workmanship ; and
it was not nntil the fiftli, tliat the lock burst in
sunder and the wreck of tlie door fell inwards on
the carpet.

The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and
the stillness that had succeeded, stood back a
little and peered in. There lay the cabinet
before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good
fire glowing and chattering on the hearth, the
kettle singing its thin strain, a drawer or two
open, papers neatly set forth on the business
table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for
tea : the quietest room, you would have said, and,
but for the glazed presses full of chemicals, the
most commonplace that night in London.

Right in the midst there lay the body of a
man sorely contorted and still twitching. They
drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its back and
beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed

G 2

8i DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the
doctor's bigness ; the cords of his face still
moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite
gone ; and by the crushed phial in the hand and
the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the
air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the
body of a self-destroyer.

' We have come too late/ he said sternly,
' whether to save .or punish. Hyde is gone to his
account ; and it only remains for us to find the
body of your master.'

The far greater proportion of the building was
occupied by the theatre, which filled almost the
whole ground story and was lighted from above,
and by the cabinet, which formed an upper story
at one end and looked upon the court. A corri-
dor joined the theatre to the door on the by-
street; and with this, the cabinet communicated
separately by a second flight of stairs. There
were besides a few dark closets and a spacious
cellar. All these they now thoroughly examined.
Each closet needed but a glance, for all were empty
and all, by the dust tliat fell from tht'ir doors, had

THE LAST MGHT 85

stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed, was filled
with crazy lumber, mostly dating from the times
of the surgeon who was Jekyll's predecessor ; but
even as they opened the door, they were adver-
tised of the uselessness of further search, by the
fall of a perfect mat of cobweb which had for
years sealed up the entrance. Nowhere was there
any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.

Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor.
' He must be buried here,' he said, hearkening to
the sound.

' Or he may have fled,' said Utterson, and he
turned to examine the door in the bj^street. It
was locked ; and lying near by on the flags, they
found the key, already stained with rust.

' This does not look like use,' observed the
lawyer.

^ Use ! ' echoed Poole. ' Do you not see, sir,
it is broken ? much as if a man had stamped
on it.'

' Ay,' continued Utterson, ^ and the fractures,
too, are rusty.' The two men looked at each
other with a scare. ^ This is beyond me, Poole,'

86 DR. JEKYLL x\XD MR. HYDE

said tlie lawyer. ' Let us go back to the
cabinet.'

They mounted the stair in silence, and still
with an occasional awestruck glance at the dead
body, proceeded more thoroughly to examine the
contents of the cabinet. At one table, there were
traces of chemical work, various measured heaps
of some white salt being laid on glass saucers, as
though for an experiment in which the unhappy
man had been prevented.

^ That is the same drug that I was always
bringing him,' said Poole ; and even as he spoke,
tlie kettle with a startling noise boiled over.

This brought them to the fireside, where the
easy chair was drawn cosily up, and the tea things
stood ready to the sitter's elbow, the very sugar
in the cup. There were several books on a shelf ;
one lay beside the tea things open, and Utterson
was amazed to find it a copy of a j)ious work, for
w^hich Jekyll had several times expressed a great
esteem, annotated, in his own hand, with startling
blasphemies.

Next, in the course of their review of the

THE LAST NIGHT 87

cliamber, the searchers came to the cheval glass,
into whose depths they looked with an involuntary
horror. But it was so turned as to show them
nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the
fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions along the
glazed front of the presses, and their own pale and
fearful countenances stooping to look in.

' This glass have seen some strange things, sir,'
whispered Poole.

^ And surely none stranger than itself,' echoed
the lawyer in the same tones. ^ For what did
Jekyll ' — he caught himself up at the word with
a start, and then conquering the weakness : ' what
could Jekyll want with it ? ' he said.
' You may say that ! ' said Poole.
Next they turned to the business table. On
the desk among the neat array of papers, a
large envelope was uppermost, and bore, in the
doctor's hand, the name of Mr. Utterson. The
lawyer unsealed it, and several enclosures fell to
the floor. The first was a will, drawn in the same
eccentric terms as the one which he had returned
six mouths before, to serve as a testament in

88 Dll. JEKYLL A^'D ME. HYDE

case of death and as a deed of gift in case of dis-
appearance ; but in place of the name of Edward
Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable amazement,
read the name of Gabriel John Utterson. He
looked at Poole, and then back at the paper, and
last of all at the dead malefactor stretched upon
the carpet.

^ My head goes round,' he said. ^ He has been
all these days in possession ; he had no cause to like
me ; he must have raged to see himself displaced ;
and he has not destroyed this document.'

He caught up the next paper ; it was a brief
note in the doctor's hand and dated at the top.
' 0 Poole ! ' the lawyer cried, ^ he was alive and
here this day. He cannot have been disposed of
in so short a space, he must be still alive, he
must have fled ! And then, why fled ? and how ?
and in that case, can we venture to declare this
suicide ? 0, we must be careful. I foresee that
we may yet involve your master in some dire
catastrophe.'

' Why don't you read it, sir ? ' asked l^oole.

^ Because I fear,' replied the lawyer solemnly.
^ God grant I have no cause for it ! ' And with

THE LAST NIGHT 89

that lie brouglit tlie paper to liis eyes and read as
follows.

^My dear Utterson, — Wlien tliis sliall fall
into your liands, I sliall have disappeared, under
what circumstances I have not the penetration to
foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances
of my nameless situation tell me that the end is
sure and must be early. Go then, and first read
the narrative which Lanyon w^arned me he was to
place in your hands ; and if you care to hear
more, turn to the confession of

' Your unworthy and unhappy friend,

^ Henry Jekyll.'

' There was a third enclosure?' asked Utterson.

^ Here, sir,' said Poole, and gave into his hands
a considerable packet sealed in several places.

The lawyer put it in his pocket. ^ I would
say nothing of this paper. If your master has
fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit.
It is now ten ; I must go home and read these
documents in quiet; but I shall be back before
midnight, when we shall send for the police.'

90 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

They went out, locking the door of the theatre
behind them ; and Utter son, once more leaving
the servants gathered about the fire in the hall,
trudged back to his office to read the two nar-
ratives in which this mystery was now to be
explained.

91

DOCTOR LANYON'S NARRATIVE,

On tlie nintli of January , now four days ago, I
received by the evening delivery a registered
envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague
and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was
a good deal surprised by this ; for we were by no
means in the habit of correspondence ; I had seen
the man, dined with him, indeed, the night before ;
and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse
that should justify the formality of registration.
The contents increased my wonder ; for this is
how the letter ran :

* lOth December, 18—

' Dear Lanyon, — You are one of my oldest
friends; and although we may have differed at
times on scientific questions, I cannot remember,
at least on my side, any break in our affection.

92 Dll. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

There was never a day wlien, if you liad said to
me, '' Jekyll, my life, my lionour, my reason,
depend upon you," I would not have sacrificed
my fortune or my left hand to help you. Lan-
yon, my life, my honour, my reason, are all at
your mercy; if you fail me to-night, I am lost.
You might suppose, after this preface, that I am
going to ask 3^ou for something dishonourable to
grant. Judge for yourself.

' I want you to postpone all other engage-
ments for to-night — ay, even if you were sum-
moned to the bedside of an emperor ; to take a
cab, unless your carriage should be actually at
the door; and with this letter in your hand for
consultation, to drive straight to my house.
Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will find
him waiting your arrival with a locksmith. The
door of my cabinet is then to be forced; and
you are to go in alone ; to open the glazed press
(letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if
it be shut ; and to draw out, iclth all its co7itents
as they stand, the fourth drawer from the top or
(which is the same thing) the third from the

DOCTOR LAXYOX'S XARRATIVE 93

bottom. In my extreme distress of mind, I have
a morbid fear of misdirecting you ; but even if I
am in error, you may know the right drawer by
its contents : some powders, a phial and a paper
book. This drawer I beg of you to carry back
with you to Cavendish Square exactly as it
stands.

' That is the first part of the service : now for
the second. You should be back, if you set out at
once on the receipt of this, long before midnight ;
but I will leave you that amount of margin, not
only in the fear of one of those obstacles that can
neither be prevented nor foreseen, but because an
hour when your servants are in bed is to be
preferred for what will then remain to do. At
midnight, then, I have to ask you to be alone in
your consulting room, to admit with your own
hand into the house a man who will present
himself in my name, and to place in his hands
the drawer that you will have brought with you
from my cabinet. Then you will have played
your part and earned my gratitude completely.
Five minutes, afterwards, if you insist upon an

94 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

explanatioiij you will have understood that these
arrangements are of capital importance ; and that
by the neglect of one of them, fantastic as they
must appear, you might Jiave charged your
conscience with my death or the shipwreck of my
reason.

^ Confident as I am that you will not trifle
with this appeal, my heart sinks and my hand
trembles at the bare thought of such a possibility.
Think of me at this hour, in a strange place,
labouring under a blackness of distress that no
fancy can exaggerate, and yet well aware that, if
you will but punctually serve me, my troubles will
roll away like a story that is told. Serve me, my
dear Lanyon, and save

' Your friend,

^H. J.

' P.S. I had already sealed this up when a
fresh terror struck upon my soul. It is possible
that the post office may fail me, and this letter
not come into your hands until to-morrow morn-
ing. In that case, dear Lanyon, do my errand

DOCTOR LANYONS NARRATIVE Vo

when it shall be most convenient for you in the
conrse of the clay; and once more expect my
messenger at midnight. It may then already be
too late ; and if that night passes without event,
you will know that you have seen the last of
Henry Jekyll.'

Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure
my colleague was insane; but till that was
proved beyond the possibility of doubt, I felt
bound to do as he requested. The less I under-
stood of this farrago, the less I was in a position
to judge of its importance; and an appeal so
worded could not be set aside without a grave
responsibility. I rose accordingly from table, got
into a hansom, and drove straight to Jekyll's
house. The butler was awaiting my arrival ; he
had received by the same post as mine a regis-
tered letter of instruction, and had sent at once
for a locksmith and a carpenter. The tradesmen
came while we were yet speaking; and we
moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical
theatre, from which (as you are doubtless aware)

96 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Jekyll's private cabinet is most conveniently
entered. The door was very strongs the lock
excellent ; the carpenter avowed he would have
great trouble and have to do much damage, if
force were to be used; and the locksmith was
near despair. But this last was a handy fellow,
and after two hours' work, the door stood open.
The press marked E was unlocked ; and I took
out the drawer, had it filled up with straw and
tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish
Square.

Here I proceeded to examine its contents.
The powders were neatly enough made up, but
not with the nicety of the dispensing chemist ; so
that it was plain they were of Jekyll's private
manufacture ; and when I opened one of the
wrappers, I found what seemed to me a simple,
crystalline salt of a white colour. The phial, to
which I next turned my attention, might have
been about half-full of a blood-red liquor, which
was highly pungent to the sense of smell and
seemed to me to contain ^ihosphorus and some
volatile ether. At the other ingredients, I could

DOCTOR LANYON's NARRATIVE 97

make no guess. The book was an ordinary version
book and contained little but a series of dates.
These covered a period of many years, but I ob-
served that the entries ceased nearly a year ago
and quite abruptly. Here and there a brief
remark was appended to a date, usually no more
than a single word : ' double ' occurring perhaps
six times in a total of several hundred entries ; and
once very early in the list and followed by several
marks of exclamation, ' total failure ! ! ! ' All this,
though it whetted my curiosity, told me little that
was definite. Here were a phial of some tincture,
a paper of some salt, and the record of a series of
experiments that had led (like too many of Jekyll's
investigations) to no end of practical usefulness.
How could the presence of these articles in my
house affect either the honour, the sanity, or the
life of my flighty colleague? If his messenger
could go to one place, why could he not go to
another ? And even granting some impediment,
why was this gentleman to be received by me in
secret ? The more I reflected, the more convinced
I o'rew that I was dealino- with a case of cei'ebral

H

98 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

disease ; and thongli I dismissed my servants to
bed, I loaded an old revolver that I might be found
in some posture of self-defence.

Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over Lon-
don, ere the knocker sounded very gently on the
door. I went myself at the summons, and found
a small man crouching against the pillars of the
portico.

' Are you come from Dr. Jekyll ? ' I asked.

He told me ' yes ' by a constrained gesture ;
and when I had bidden him enter, he did not obey
me without a searching backward glance into the
darkness of the square. There was a policeman
not far off, advancing with his bull's eye open ;
and at the sight, I thought my visitor started and
made greater haste.

These particulars struck me, I confess, dis-
agreeably ; and as I followed him into the bright
light of the consulting room, I kept my hand
ready on my weapon. Here, at last, I had a
chance of clearly seeing him. I had never set eyes
on him before, so much was certain. He was
small, as I have said ; I was struck besides with

DOCTOR lanyon's narhative 99

tlie shocking expression of his face, with his
remarkable combination of great muscular activity
and great apparent debility of constitution, and—
last but not least — with the odd, subjective dis-
turbance caused by his neighbourhood. This
bore some resemblance to incipient rigor, and
was accompanied by a marked sinking of tlie
pulse. At the time, I set it down to some idios-
yncratic, personal distasbe, and merely wondered
at the acuteness of the symptoms ; but I have
since had reason to believe the cause to lie much
deeper in the nature of man, and to turn
on some nobler hinge than the principle of
hatred.

This person (who had thus, from the first
moment of his entrance, struck in me what I can
only describe as a disgustful curiosity) was dressed
in a fashion that would have made an ordinary
person laughable : his clothes, that is to say,
although they were of rich and sober fabric, were
enormously too large for him in every measure-
ment— the trousers hanging on his legs and
rolled up to keep them from the ground, the

H 2

100 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

waist of the coat below his haunches, and the
collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders. Strange
to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far
from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there
was something abnormal and misbegotten in the
very essence of the creature that now faced
me — something seizing, surprising and revolting
— this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with
and to reinforce it ; so that to my interest in the
man's nature and character, there was added a
curiosity as to his origin, his life, his fortune and
status in the world.

These observations, though they have taken so
great a space to be set down in, were yet the work
of a few seconds. My visitor was, indeed, on fire
with sombre excitement.

' Have you got it ? ' he cried. ' Have you got
it ? ' And so lively was his impatience that he
even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to
shake me.

I put him back, conscious at his touch of a
certain icy pang along my blood. ' Come, sir,'
said I. ' You forget that I have not yet the plea-

DOCTOR LAXYON's NARRATIVE 101

sure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you
please.' And I showed liim an example, and sat
down myself in my customary seat and with as
fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a
patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of
my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my
visitor, would suffer me to muster.

^ I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon,' he replied
civilly enough. ' What you say is very well
founded ; and my impatience has shown its heels
to my politeness. I come here at the instance of
your colleague. Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of
business of some moment ; and I understood . . .'
he paused and put his hand to his throat, and I
could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he
was wrestling against the approaches of the
hysteria — ' I understood, a drawer . . .'

But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense,
and some perhaps on my own growing curiosity.

^ There it is, sir,' said I, pointing to the
drawer, where it lay on the floor behind a table
and still covered with the sheet.

He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his

102 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

hand upon liis heart ; I could hear his teeth grate
with the convulsive action of his jaws ; and his
face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed
both for his life and reason.

' Compose yourself/ said I.

lie turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if
with the decision of despair, plucked away the
sheet. At sight of the contents, he uttered
one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat
petrified. And the next moment, in a voice that
was already fairly well under control, ^ Have you
a graduated glass ? ' he asked.

I rose from my place with something of an
effort and gave him what he asked.

He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured
out a few minims of the red tincture and added
one of the powders. The mixture, which w^as at
first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the
crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce
audibly, and to throw oft' small fumes of vapour.
Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition
ceased and the compound changed to a dark
purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery

DOCTOR LANYON'S NARRATIVE 103

green. My visitor, who liacl watclied these meta-
morphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the
glass upon the table, and then turned and looked
upon me with an air of scrutiny.

^ And now,' said he, 'to settle what remains.
"Will you be wise ? will you be guided ? will you
suffer me to take this glass in my hand and to go
forth from your house without further parley ? or
has the greed of curiosity too much command of
you ? Think before you answer, for it shall be
done as you decide. As you decide, you shall be
left as you were before, and neither richer nor
wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a
man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind
of riches of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to
choose, a new province of knowledge and new
avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to
you, here, in this room, upon the instant ; and
your sight shall be blasted by a prodigy to stagger
the unbelief of Satan.'

' Sir,' said I, affecting a coolness that I was
far from truly possessing, ' you speak enigmas,
and you will perhaps not wonder that 1 hear you

104 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

with no very strong impression of belief. But I
have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services
to pause before I see the end.'

' It is well/ replied my visitor. ' Lanyon, you
remember your vows : what follows is under the
seal of our profession. And now, you who have
so long been bound to the most narrow and
material views, you who have denied the virtue of
transcendental medicine, you who have derided
your superiors — behold ! '

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one
gulp. A cry followed ; he reeled, staggered,
clutched at the table and held on, staring with
injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as
I looked there came, I thought, a change — he
seemed to swell — his face became suddenly black
and the features seemed to melt and alter — and
the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and
leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to
shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged
in terror.

' 0 G od ! ' I screamed, and ' 0 God ! ' again
and again ; for there before my eyes — pale and

DOCTOR LANYOX'S XAKUATIVE 105

sliakeiij and half fainting, and groping before liim
with his hands, like a man restored from death —
there stood Henry Jekyll !

What he told me in the next hour, I cannot
bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I
saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened
at it ; and yet now when that sight has faded
from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I
cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots ;
sleep has left me ; the deadliest terror sits by me
at all hours of the day and night ; I feel that my
days are numbered, and that I must die ; and yet
I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpi-
tude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of
penitence, I cannot, even in memory, dwell on it
without a start of horror. I will say but one
thing, Utterson, and that (if you can bring your
mind to credit it) will be more than enough. The
creature who crept into my house that night was,
on Jekyll's own confession, known by the name
of Hyde and hunted for in every corner of the
land as the murderer of Carew.

HaSTIE LA^^YON.

106 'DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

HENRY JEKYLU8 FULL STATEMENT

OF THE CASE.

I WAS born in the year 18 — to a large fortune,
endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by
nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise
and good among my fellow-men, and thus, as
might have been supposed, with every guarantee
of an honourable and distinguished future. And
indeed the worst of my faults was a certain
impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made
the happiness of many, but such as I found it
hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to
carry my head high, and wear a more than
commonly grave countenance before the public.
Hence it came about that I concealed my plea-
sures ; and that when I reached years of reflection,
and began to look round me and take stock of my
progress and position in the world, I stood already

HENRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 107

committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many
a man would have even blazoned such irregularities
as I was guilty of; but from the high views that
I had set before me, I regarded and hid them
with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was
thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations
than any particular degradation in my faults, that
made me what I was and, with even a deeper
trench than in the majority of men, severed in me
those provinces of good and ill which divide and
compound man's dual nature. In this case, I was
driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that
hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion
and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no
sense a hypocrite ; both sides of me were in dead
earnest ; I was no more myself when I laid aside
restraint and plunged in shame, than when I
laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of
knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering.
And it chanced that the direction of my scientific
studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and
the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong

108 DR. JEKYLL AND MK. HYDE

light on tliis consciousness of the perennial war
among my members. With every day, and from
both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the
intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that
truth, by whose partial discovery I have been
doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck : that man
is not truly one, but truly two. I say two,
because the state of my own knowledge does not
pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others
will outstrip me on the same lines ; and I hazard
the guess that man will be ultimately known for
a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and
independent denizens. I for my part, from the
nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one
direction and in one direction only. It was on
the moral side, and in my own person, that I
learned to recognise the thorough and primitive
duality of man ; I saw that, of the two natures
that contended in the field of my consciousness,
even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was
only because I was radically both ; and from an
early date, even before the course of my scientific
discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked

HEXRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 109

possibility of sucli a miracle, I liad learned to
dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on
tlie thought of the separation of these elements.
If each, I told myself, could but be housed in
separate identities, life would be relieved of all
that was unbearable ; the unjust might go his
way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of
his more upright twin ; and the just could walk
steadfastly and securely on his upward path,
doing the good things in which he found his
pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and
penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.
It was the curse of mankind that these incon-
gruous faggots were thus bound together — that
in the agonised womb of consciousness, these
polar twins should be continuously struggling.
How, then, were they dissociated ?

I was so far in my reflections when, as I have
said, a side light began to shine upon the subject
from the laboratory table. I began to perceive
more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the
trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience,
of this seemingflv so solid bodv in which we walk

110 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

attired. Certain agents I found to have tlie
power to shake and to pluck back that fleshly-
vestment, even as a wind might toss the cur-
tains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I
will not enter dee^ily into this scientific branch
of my confession. First, because I have been
made to learn that the doom and burthen of our
life is bound forever on man's shoulders, and
when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but
returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more
awful ]3ressure. Second, because as my narrative
will make alas ! too evident, my discoveries were
incomplete. Enough, then, that I not only
recognised my natural body for the mere aura
and effulgence of certain of the powers that made
up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug
by which these powers should be dethroned from
their supremacy, and a second form, and counte-
nance substituted, none the less natural to me
because they were the expression, and bore the
stamp, of lower elements in my soul.

I hesitated long before I put this theory to'
the test of practice. I knew well that I risked!

HENRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 111

deatli; for any drug that so potently controlled
and shook the very fortress of identity, might by
the least scruple of an overdose or at the least
inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly
blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked
to it to change. But the temptation of a dis-
covery so singular and profound, at last overcame
the suggestions of alarm. I had long since
prepared my tincture ; I purchased at once, from
a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of
a particular salt which I knew, from my experi-
ments, to be the last ingredient required; and
late one accursed night, I compounded the
elements, watched them boil and smoke together
in the glass, and when the ebullition had sub-
sided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the
potion.

The most racking pangs succeeded : a grind-
ing in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of
the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of
birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly
to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a
great sickness. There was something strange in

112 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

my sensations, sometliing indescribably new and,
from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt
younger, ligliter, happier in body ; witliin I was
conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of
disordered sensual images running like a mill
race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of
obligation, an unknown but not an innocent
freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first
breath of this new life, to be more wicked,
tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original
evil ; and the thought, in that moment, braced
and delighted, me like wine. I stretched out my
hands, exulting in the freshness of these sen-
sations ; and in the act, I was suddenly aware
that I had lost in stature.

There was no mirror, at that date, in my
room ; that which stands beside me as I write,
was brought there later on and for the veiy
purpose of these transformations. The night,
however, was far gone into the morning — the
morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the
conception of the day — the inmates of my house
wc^'e locked in the most rio-orons hours of shiuilfcr;

HENRY JEKYLL'S STATEMENT OF TflE CASE 113

and I cleterminedj flushed as I was with hope and
triumph J to venture in my new shape as far as to
my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the
constellations looked down upon me, I could have
thought, with wonder, the first creature of that
sort that their unsleeping vigilance had yet
disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors,'
a stranger in my own house ; and coming to my
room, I saw for the first time the appearance of
Edward Hyde. ^

I must here speak by theory alone, saying not
that which I know, but that wJiich I suppose to
be most probable. The evil side of my nature,
to wliich I had now transferred the stamping
efficacy, was less robust and less developed than
the good which I had just deposed. Again, in
the course of my life, which had been, after all,
nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it
had been much less exercised and much less
exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came
about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller,
slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even
as good shone upon the countenance of the one,

I

114 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

evil was written broadly and plainly on the face
of tlie other. Evil besides (which I must still
believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on
that body an imprint of deformity and decay.
And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in
the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance,
rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, Avas
myself. It seemed natural and human. In my
eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it
seemed more express and single, than the
imperfect and divided countenance, I had been
hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far
I was doubtless right. I have observed that when
I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none
could come near to me at first without a visible
misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
because all human beings, as we meet them, are
commingled out of good and evil : and Edward
Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure
evil.

I lingered but a moment at the mirror : the
second and conclusive experiment had yet to be
attempted ; it yet remained to be seen if I had

HENRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 115

lost my identity beyond redemption and must
flee before daylight from, a house that was no
longer mine ; and hurrying back to my cabinet,
I once more prepared and drank the cup, once
more suffered the pangs of dissolution, a.nd came
to myself once more with the character, the
stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.

That night I had come to the fatal cross roads.
Had I approached my discovery in a more noble
spirit, had I risked the experiment while under
the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all
must have been otherwise, and from these agonies
ot' death and birth, I had come forth an angel
instead of a fiend. The drug had no dis-
criminating action ; it v/as neither diabolical nor
divine ; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse
of my disposition ; and like the captives of
Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At
that time my virtue slumbered ; my evil, kept
awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize
the occasion ; and the thing that was projected
was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now

I 2

116 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

two characters as well as two appearances, one
was w^holly evil, and the other was still the
old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of
whose reformation and improvement I had already
learned to despair. The movement was thus
wholly toward the worse.

Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my
aversion to the dryness of a life of study. I would
still be merrily disj)osed at times ; and as my plea-
sures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was
not only well known and highly considered, but
growing towards the elderly man, this incoherency
of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It
was on this side that my new power tempted me
until I fell in slavery. T had but to drink the
cup, to doff at once the body of the noted pro-
fessor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of
Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion ; it seemed
to me at the time to be humorous ; and I made
my preparations with the most studious care. I
took and furnished that house in Soho, to which
Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged
as housekeeper a creature whom I well knew to

HENRY JEKYLl's STATEMENT OF TIlE CASE 117

be silent and unscrupulous. On the otlier side, T
announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde
(whom I described) was to have full liberty and
power about my house in the square; and to
parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a
familiar object, in my second character. I next
drew up that will to which you so much objected ;
so that if anything befell me in the person of
Doctor Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward
Hyde without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified,
as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by
the strange immunities of my position.

Men have before hired bravos to transact
their crimes, while their own person and reputa-
tion sat under shelter. I was the first that ever
did so for his pleasures. I was the first that
could thus plod in the public eye with a load of
genial respectability, and in a moment, like a
schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring
headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in
my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete.
Think of it — I did not even exist ! Let me but es-
cape into my laboratory door, give me but a second

118 Dll. JEKYLL A:>D MK. HYDE

or two to mix and s\Yallow the draiiglit that I had
always standing ready ; and whateYer he had done,
Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain
of breath npon a mirror ; and there in his stead,
quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in
liis study, a man \Yho could afford to laugh at
suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.

The pleasures which I made haste to seek in
my disguise were, as I liaYO said, undignified; I
would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands
of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn tow^ards
the monstrous. When I would come back from
these excursions, I was often plunged into a
kind of wonder at my Yicarious depraYity.
This familiar that I called out of my own soul,
and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was
a being inherently malign and Yillainous ; his
eYory act and thought centered on self; drinking
pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of
torture to another ; relentless like a man of stone.
Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the
acts of Edward Hyde ; but the situation was apart
from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the

IIE.NKY JEKVLl's STATEMEXT OF THE CASE 119

grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and
Hyde alone, that was giiilty. Jekyll was no
worse ; lie woke again to his good qualities
seemingly unimpaired ; he would even make
haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil
done by Hyde. And thus his conscience
slumbered.

Into the details of the infamy at which I
thus connived (for even novf I can scarce grant
that I committed it) I have no design of entering
I mean but to point out the warnings and the
successive steps with, wdiich my chastisement
approached. I met with one accident which, as it
brought on no consequence, I shall no more than
mention. An act of cruelty to a child aroused
against me the anger of a passer by, whom I
recognised the other day in the person of your
kinsman ; the doctor and the child's family joined
him ; there were moments when I feared for my
life; and at last, in order to pacify their too just
resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to
the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the
name, of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was

120 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

easily eliminated from the future, by opening an
account at another bank in the name of Edward
Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own
hand backward, I had supplied my double with
a signature, I thought I sat beyond the reach of
fate.

Some two months before the murder of Sir
Danvers, I had been out for one of my adven-
tures, had returned at a late hour, and woke the
next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations.
It was in vain I looked about me ; in vain I saw
the decent furniture and tall proportions of my
room in the square ; in vain that I recognised the
pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the
mahogany frame; something still kept insisting
that I was not where I was, that I had not
wakened where I seemed to be, but in the little
room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in
the body of Edward Hyde. I smiled to myself,
and, in my psychological way, began lazily to
inquire into the elements of this illusion, occa-
sionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a
comfortable morning doze. I was still so en-

HENRY JEKYLl's STATEMENT OF TIIE CASE 121

gaged when, in one of my more wakeful moments,
my eye fell upon my hand. Now the hand of
Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was
professional in shape and size : it was large, firm,
white and comely. But the hand which I now
saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-
London morning, lying half shut on the bed
clothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky
pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of
hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

I must have stared upon it for near half a
minute, sunk as I was in the mere stupidity of
wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as
sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals ; and
bounding from my bed, I rushed to the mirror. At
the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed
into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I
had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened
Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained ?
I asked myself; and then, with another bound of
terror — how was it to be remedied? It was well
on in the morning ; the servants were up ; all
iTLj drugs were in the cabinet — a long journey,

122 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

clown two pair of stairs, tlirongh the back pas-
sage, across the open court and through the
anatomical theatre, from wliere I was then stand-
ing liorror-struck. It might indeed be possible
to cover my face ; but of what use was that, when
I w^as unable to conceal the alteration in my
stature ? And then with an overpowering sweet-
ness of relief, it came back upon my mind that
the servants were already used to the coming and
going of my second self. I had soon dressed, as
well as I was able, in clothes of my own size :
had soon passed through the house, wdiere
Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr.
Hyde at such an hour and in such a strange
array; and ten minutes later. Dr. Jekyll had
returned to his own shape and was sitting down,
with a darkened brow, to make a feint of break-
fasting.

Small indeed was my appetite. This in-
explicable incident, this reversal of my previous
experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on
the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my
judgment ; and I began to reflect more seriously

IIENliY JEKYLL's STATEME^'T OF THE CASE 123

than ever before on the issues and possibilities of
my double existence. That part of me which I
had the power of projecting, had lately been
much exercised and nourished ; it had seemed to
me of late as though the body of Edward Hvde
had grown in stature, as though (when I wore
that form) I were conscious of a more generous
tide of blood ; and I began to spy a danger that,
if this were much prolonged, the balance of my
nature might be permanently overthrown, the
power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the
character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably
mine. The power of the drug had not been
always equally displayed. Once, very early in my
career, it had totally failed me ; since then I had
been obliged on more than one occasion to
double, and once, with infinite risk of death, to
treble the amount ; and these rare uncertainties
had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my content-
ment. Now, however, and in the light of that
morning's accident, I was led to remark that
whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been
to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late,

124 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. IIYDE

gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the
other side. All things therefore seemed to point
to this : that I was slowly losing hold of my
original and better self, and becoming slowly
incorporated with my second and worse.

Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.
My two natures had memory in common, but all
other faculties were most unequally shared between
them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the
most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy
gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and
adventures of Hyde ; but Hyde was indifferent to
Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain
bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals
himself from jDursuit. Jekyll had more than a
father's interest ; Hyde had more than a son's in-
difference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to
die to those appetites which I had long secretly
indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast
it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests
and asi^irations, and to become, at a blow and for-
ever, despised and friendless. The bargain might
appear unequal ; but there was still another con-

HENRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 125

sideration in the scales ; for while Jekyll would
suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde
would be not even conscious of all that he had
lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the
terms of this debate are as old and commonplace
as man ; much the same inducements and alarms
cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner ;
and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a
majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part
and was found wanting in the strength to keep
to it.

Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented
doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing
honest hopes ; and bade a resolute farewell to the
liberty, the comparative youth, the light step,
leaping pulses and secret pleasures, that I had
enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made this
choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation,
for I neither gave up the house in Soho, nor de-
stroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still
lay ready in my cabinet. For two months, how-
ever, I was true to my determination ; for two
months, I led a life of such severity as I had never

126 Dli. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations
of an approving conscience. But time began
at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm ;
the praises of conscience began to grow into a
thing of course ; I began to be tortured with
throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after
freedom ; and at last, in an hour of moral weak-
ness, I once again compounded and swallowed the
transforming draught .

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons
with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five
hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs
through his brutish, physical insensibility ; neither
had I, long as I had considered my position, made
enough allowance for the complete moral insensi-
bility and insensate readiness to evil, which were
the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was
by these that I was punished. My devil had been
long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious,
even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled,
a more furious propensity to ill. It must have
been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that
tempest of impatience with which I listened to

HENRY JEKYLLS STATEMENT OF THE CASE 127

the civilities of iny unliappy victim ; I declare at
leastj before Goci; no man morally sane could liave
been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provo-
cation ; and that I struck in no more reasonable
spirit than that in which a sick child may break
a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped
myself of all those balancing instincts, by which
even the worst of us continues to walk with some
degree of steadiness among temptations ; and in
my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to
fall.

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and
raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the
unresisting body, tasting delight fiom every
blow ; and it was not till weariness had begun to
succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my
delirium, struck through the heart by a cold
thrill of terror. A mist dispersed ; I saw my life
to be forfeit ; and fled from the scene of these
excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust
of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life
screwed to the topmost peg. I ran to the house
in Soho, and (to make assurance doubly sure)

128 DR. JEKYLL AND MK. HYDE

destroyed my papers ; tlience I set out through
the lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy
of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly
devising others in the future, and yet still has-
tening and still hearkening in my wake for the
steps of the avenger. Hyde had a song upon his
lips as he compounded the draught, and as he
drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs
of transformation had not done tearing him,
before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of
gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees
and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of
self-indulgence was rent from head to foot, I saw
my life as a whole : I followed it up from the days
of childhood, when I had walked with my father's
hand, and through the self-denying toils of my
professional life, to arrive again and again, with
the same sense of unreality, at the damned hor-
rors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud ;
I sought with tears and prayers to smother down
the crowd of hideous images and sounds with
which my memory swarmed against me ; and
still, between the petitions, the ugly face of my

HENRY JEKYLL'S STATEMENT OF THE CASE 129

iniquity stared into my soul. As the acuteness
of this remorse began to die away, it was suc-
ceeded by a sense of joy. The problem of my
conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth im-
possible ; w^hether I would or not, I was now con-
fined to the better part of my existence ; and 0,
how I rejoiced to think it ! with what willing
humility, I embraced anew the restrictions of
natural life ! w^ith what sincere renunciation, I
locked the door by which I had so often gone,
and come, and ground the key under my heel !i

The next day, came the news that the-
murder liad been overlooked, that the guilt of
Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim
was a man high in public estimation. It was not,
only a crime, it had been a tragic folly. I think
I was glad to know it ; I think I was glad to
have my better impulses thus buttressed and
guarded by the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was
now my city of refuge ; let but Hyde peep out
an instant, and the hands of all men would be
raised to take and slay him.

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the

K

130 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

l^ast ; and I can say with honesty that my resolve
was fruitful of some good. You know yourself
how earnestly in the last months of last year,
I laboured to relieve suffering ; you know that
much was done for others, and that the days
passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor
can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent
and innocent life ; I think instead that I daily
enjoyed it more completely; but I was still
cursed with my duality of purpose ; and as the
first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side
of me, so long indulged, so recently chained
down, began to growl for license. Not that I
dreamed of resuscitating Hyde ; the bare idea of
that would startle me to frenzy : no, it was in my
own .person, that I was once more tempted to
trifle with my conscience ; and it was as an
•ordinary secret sinner, that I at last fell before the
assaults of temptation.

There comes an end to all things ; the most
capacious measure is filled at last ; and this brief
condescension to my evil finally destroyed the
balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed ]

HENRY JEKYLL'S STATEMENT OF THE CASE 131

tlie fall seemed natural, like a return to the old
days before I had made my discovery. It was a
fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the
frost had melted, but cloudless overhead ; and
the Regent's park was full of winter chirruppings
and sweet with Spring odours. I sat in the sun
on a bench ; the animal within me licking the
chops of memory ; the spiritual side a little
drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not
yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected I was
like my neighbours ; and then I smiled, comparing
myself with other men, comparing my active
goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.
And at the very moment of that vainglorious
thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea
and the most deadly shuddering. These passed
away, and left me faint ] and then as in its turn
the faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a
change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater
boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the
bonds of obligation. I looked down ; my clothes
hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs ; the hand
that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I

132 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before
I had been safe of all men's respect, wealthy, be-
loved— the cloth laying for me in the dining room
at home ; and now I was the common quarry of
mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer,
thrall to the gallows.

My reason wavered, but it did not fail me
utterly. I have more than once observed that, in
my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened
to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic ;
thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps
might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the import-
ance of the moment. My drugs were in one of the
presses of my cabinet ; how was I to reach them ?
That was the problem that (crushing my temples
in my hands) I set myself to solve. The labora-
tory door I had closed. If I sought to enter by
the house, my own servants would consign me to
the gallows. I saw I must employ another hand,
and thought of Lanyon. How was he to be
reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I
escaped capture in the streets, how was I to make
my way into his presence ? and how should I, an

HENRY JEKYLL'S STATEMENT OF THE CASE 133

unknown and displeasing visitor, prevail on the
famous physician to rifle the study of his colleague,
Dr. Jekyll ? Then I remembered that of my
original character, one part remained to me : I
could write my own hand ; and once I had con-
ceived that kindling spark, the way that I must
follow became lighted up from end to end.

Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I
could, and summoning a passing hansom, drove
to an hotel in Portland street, the name of which
I chanced to remember. At my appearance
(which was indeed comical enough, however
tragic a fate these garments covered) the driver
could not conceal his mirth. I gnashed my teeth
upon him with a gust of devilish fury ; and the
smile withered from his face — happily for him —
yet more happily for myself, for in another instant
I had certainly dragged him from his perch. At
the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with
so black a countenance as made the attendants
tremble ; not a look did they exchange in my
presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led
me to a private room, and brought me where-

134 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

withal to write. Hjde in danger of his life was
a creature new to me : shaken with inordinate
anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting
to inflict pain. Yet the creature was astute;
mastered his fury with a great effort of the will ;
composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon
and one to Poole ; and that he might receive
actual evidence of their being posted, sent them
out with directions that they should be registered.
Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in
the private room, gnawing his nails ; there he
dined, sitting alone with his fears, the waiter
visibly quailing before his eye ; and thence, when
the night was fully come, he set forth in the
corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro
about the streets of the city. He, I say — I
cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing
human ; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.
And when at last, thinking the driver had begun
to grow suspicious, he discharged the cab and
ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes,
an object marked out for observation, into the
midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base

HENRY JP:KYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 135

passions raged witliin liim like a tempest. He
walked fast, hunted by liis fears, chattering to
himself, skulking through the less frequented
thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still
divided him from midnight. Once a woman
spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of lights.
He smote her in the face, and she fled.

When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the
horror of my old friend perhaps affected me some-
what : I do not know ; it was at least but a drop
in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked
back upon these hours. A change had come
over me. It w^as no longer the fear of the gallows,
it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.
I received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a
dream ; it was partly in a dream that I came
home to my own house and got into bed. I slej^t
after the prostration of the day, with a stringent
and profound slumber which not even the night-
mares that wrung me could avail to break. I
awoke in the morning shaken, weakened, but
refreshed. I still hated and feared the thouo-ht
of the brute that slept within me, and I had not

13G DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

of course forgotten tlie appalling dangers of tlie
day before ; but I was once more at home, in my
own house and close to my drugs ; and gratitude
for my escape shone so strong in my soul that it
almost rivalled the brightness of hope.

I was stepping leisurely across the court
after breakfast, drinking the chill of the air with
pleasure, when I was seized again with those in-
describable sensations that heralded the change ;
and I had but the time to gain the shelter of my
cabinet, before I was once again raging and
freezing with the passions of Hyde. It took on
this occasion a double dose to recall me to my-
self; and alas, six hours after, as I sat looking
sadly in the fire, the pangs returned, and the
drug had to be re-administered. In short, from
that day forth it seemed only by a great effort
as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate
stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear
the countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of the
day and night, I would be taken with the pre-
monitory shudder; above all, if I slept, or even
dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as

HENKY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 137

Hyde that I awakened. Under tlie strain of this
continually impending doom and by the sleepless-
ness to which I now condemned myself, ay,
even beyond what I had thought possible to man,
I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up
and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body
and mind, and solely occupied by one thought :
the horror of my other self. But when I slept, or
when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I would
leap almost without transition (for the pangs of
transformation grew daily less marked) into the
possession of a fancy brimming with images oi
terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and
a body that seemed not strong enough to contain
the raging energies of life. The powers of Hyde
seemed to have grown with the sickliness of
Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided
them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it
was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen
the full deformity of that creature that shared
with him some of the phenomena of consciousness,
and was co-heir with him to death : and beyond
these links of community, which in themselves

138 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

made the most poignant part of liis distress, lie
thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of
something not only hellish but inorganic. This
was the shocking thing ; that the slime of the pit
seemed to utter cries and voices ; that the amor-
phous dust gesticulated and sinned ; that what
was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the
offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent
horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer
than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he
heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born ;
and at every hour of weakness, and in the confi-
dence of slumber, prevailed against him, and de-
posed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for
Jekyll, was of a different order. His terror of the
gallows drove him continually to commit temporary
suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a
part instead of a person ; but he loathed the
necessity, he loathed the despondency into which
Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dis-
like with which he was himself regarded. Hence
the apelike tricks that he would play me, scraw-
ling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of

HENRY JEKYLL's STATEMENT OF THE CASE 139

my books, burning tlie letters and destroying the
portrait of my father ; and indeed, had it not
been for his fear of death, he woukl long ago
have ruined himself in order to involve me in the
ruin. But his love of life is wonderful ; I go
further : I, who sicken and freeze at the mere
thought of him, when I recall the abjection and
passion of this attachment, and when I know
how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide,
I find it in my heart to pity him.

It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to
prolong this description ; no one has ever suffered
such torments, let that suffice ; and yet even to
these, habit brought — no, not alleviation — but a
certain callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence
of despair ; and my punishment might have gone
on for years, but for the last calamity which has
now fallen, and which has finally severed me from
my own face and nature. My provision of the salt,
which had never been renewed since the date of
the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out
for a fresh supply, and mixed the draught ; the
ebullition followed, and the first change of colour,

140 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

not tlie second ; I drank it and it was without
efficiency. You will learn from Poole howl have
had London ransacked ; it was in vain ; and I am
now persuaded that my first supply was impure,
and that it was that unknown impurity which
lent efficacy to the draught.

About a week has passed, and I am now finish-
ing this statement under the influence of the last
of the old powders. This, then, is the last time,
short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think
his own thoughts or see his own face (now how
sadly altered !) in the glass. Nor must I delay
too long to bring my writing to an end ; for if
my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it
has been by a combination of great prudence and
great good luck. Should the throes of change
take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it
in pieces ; but if some time shall have elapsed after
I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and
circumscription to the moment will probably save
it once again from the action of his apelike spite.
And indeed the doom that is closing on us both,
has already changed and crushed him. Half an

HENRY JEKYLL'S STATEMENT OF THE CASE 141

hour from now, wlien I sliall again and forever
reindue that hated personality, I know how I shall
sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or con-
tinue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy
of listening, to pace up and down this room (my
last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of
menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold ? or
will he find the courage to release himself at the
last moment ? God knows ; I am careless ; this is
my true hour of death, and what is to follow con-
cerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay
down the pen and proceed to seal up my confes-
sion, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry
Jekyll to an end.

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